AIFF- Monthly 2024

Trees

On the death of her husband, Malal retrieves her hidden pencils and paper from beneath a floor board to draw the flowers in her garden. While her sons argue over who will look after her now, she leaves the house alone for the first time in years.

Sab Rab De Bande (We’re all God’s Creation)

Sab Rab De Bande brings forth the various challenges that LGBTQ Sikhs grapple with and the different ways in which they reconcile their faith and gender/sexual identities. The documentary, through interviews with LGBTQ Sikhs, captures the varied experiences of queer Sikhs. Featured in the documentary are five different people with different gender and sexual identities and belonging to different parts of India. By tracking their life, the documentary seeks to find answers to questions like: Did their religious identity (and teachings) come in conflict with their sexual/gender identity, or did they find strength in the teachings of their religion and religious identity? What was the reaction of their family when they came out? Did they oppose it in terms of religion? How did the lack of visibility and representation of queer Sikhs in media and online spaces affect them while growing up? What kind of discrimination they face within the queer community, which idolizes a clean shaved look? What did they feel growing up as a Sikh and a queer person?

Young ans Naive

The eloquent words of Robin’s journey to face her past begin a tidal wave of healing hearts at Poet’s Jazz House….just somewhere to go in the midst of searching your soul. A poetry lounge where spilling your heart is art and searching your soul is mandatory to get in the door. Young & Naive delves deep into the mind of the poet; creating a masterful work of art in this remarkable and profoundly affecting story; as seen through the eyes of a spoken word artist spitting the powerful intensity of truth.

We can save our children, we can change the world! 

Forgetting

Synopsis: Following a stroke, Marie, a 85 years old woman, wakes up in the hospital. She has forgotten French and can only speak Breton, her mother tongue, a language that she hadn’t used for years.

directed by Madeleine Guillo-Lean from France Duration: 18:06 minutes

Flip Flop

A Thousand Years of Love (MYNAMAR)

Wai Hnin and Ingyinn, two young girls in Burma, have a chance encounter and immediately are pulled together by a mutual attraction. Wai is of a volatile, emotional personality and Ingyinn and young and confused. Moreover, Ingyinn is already engaged to a man. But when the attraction between the two girls becomes very apparent, Ingyinn must make a decision while Wai must rein in her own highly volatile emotion.

U=Me

Synopsis: Nikita faces a life-altering situation when her husband, Neeraj, discloses his HIV diagnosis. While struggling with the emotional turmoil, she contemplates leaving him due to the lifelong nature of the disease. Unexpectedly reuniting after some time, Neeraj reveals that with consistent medication, he can lead a healthy life without transmitting HIV through sex. Nikita, guided by a counselor and medical consultant, discovers the empowering concept of “U=U” (Undetectable = Untransmittable), providing hope for a fulfilling future together.

UN-WOMAN

Plot:
For a comfortable life, a man belonging to the rural parts of India illegally buys a bride for himself but unknowingly marries a Hijda (Slur used in India to describe an Transgender / Intersex person). They eventually fall in love and fight to survive as a couple in a conservative, oppressive society where marriages are meant to take place only between a man and a woman, and traditional norms are more important than humanity.

Synopsis:
Bhanwar a simple man from the village of Rajasthan leads a lonely life. He is further burdened by the overpowering shadow of his dominant uncle Bhairo who mostly decides on Bhanwar’s behalf. To improve their living condition his uncle Bhanwar coaxes him to buy a bride. Bhanwar sells his piece of land and Bhairo contacts a human trafficker. But as destiny holds it, the human trafficker dupes Bhanwar and instead of a woman sells him Sanwri who is an Transgender / Intersex person (She is a person with a female gender identity born with no vagina and reproductive organs).
Stuck in a strange situation, both Bhanwar and Bhairo decide to keep her in their home for household work and withhold Sanwri’s actual identity since Transgender / Intersex people are looked down upon in Indian society.
Sanwri’s gentle demeanor and sweet nature soften Bhanwar’s heart. Their bond based on necessity gradually turns into love. But for Bhairo, Sanwri and Bhanwar’s relationship is anything but real. Bhairo treats Sanwri as an object who is only there to serve his needs. He wants Sanwri to satisfy his lustful needs too. When Bhanwar objects tension brews between them and Sanwri’s reality comes out in open. Bhanwar and Sanwri realize that their love is not enough to survive the harsh judgment, mockery, taboos, and hypocrisy of society.
Set in the world of relatable characters, the film also throws light on bride trafficking, the skewed female ratio in some parts of India, and the status of Transgender / Intersex people who are abused as ‘Chakka’ ‘Gud’ ‘Hijda’. People made them feel ashamed of their bodies and forced them to live a life away from the mainstream.

Paper Dream

The story of this film is about an albino teenage boy who falls in love with a young girl

Here Lies

A 50 years-old woman cannot stand her husband anymore and decides to go to space.

If I Could Tell You

Charu, a Deaf woman and her hearing friend Surbhi share two very distinct relationships with Indian Sign Language (ISL) — Surbhi who is a child of Deaf adults (CODA) learnt sign even before she learnt any spoken language while Charu grew up in a family of hearing people and learnt ISL much later in life.

Equipped with the power of language and the newfound access it has enabled her, Charu is trying to push the limits that the hearing world has imposed on her and is actively working towards building a larger community of independent, empowered Deaf women in India. Through her feminist forum called, “Deaf Women Too”, she aims to reshape societal perspectives and create a more inclusive future.

Surbhi, on the other hand has been an interpreter all her life, bridging the communication gap between the Deaf and hearing worlds. While continuing to fulfill her role as an interpreter, she is now learning to break out of the weight that comes with being a caregiver and is finding what it means to do something for herself.

By opening up this conversation about the need to express beyond just the Deaf community, ‘If I could Tell You’ embarks upon a broader inquiry into the significance of language in our shared human experience. Interspersed with performances and interviews with a dancer, a drag queen, an actor and an ISL poet, the film explores how these various manifestations of visual language help us understand agency, autonomy and care.

Made in collaboration with artist Pakhi Sen, this documentary pushes the boundaries of storytelling by blending diverse media forms, including animation and artistic performances. It is also the first instance of an Indian film featuring an original ISL poem by a Deaf poet.

The Jungle Is My Garden

Beyond