Pankaj Butalia
2021Karvaan
Pankaj Butalia
Subrat Dutta, Kitu Gidwani
Young filmmaker Pankaj Butalia directs this sweeping film about ill-fated love set against the epic canvas of India's partition into Hindu Indian and Muslim Pakistan. The film opens with Lajma, a beautiful school teacher with greying hair, leaving Pakistan for her childhood home in India. There she discovers that the home is in ruin, her aging aunt is half senile, and her cousin Gautam is bitter and defeated. Flashback to 1947 when India splits in two -- the police force a proud old Muslim man, along with his grieving daughter-in-law, to take in a couple of impoverished Hindus, Chand and Bhagwati, into their large home. Later, Chand's mute sister Lajjo arrives with her young daughter Lajma in tow. Suffering from some unnamed past trauma, Lajjo is eventually shipped off to an asylum, leaving Lajma with her uncle. Later still, Lajma, Chand's son Gautam and their neighbor's son Jamal all live and play with each other in Chand's vast complex.
Shadows in the Dark
The Textures of Loss
Pankaj Butalia
Pankaj Butalia
For over two decades now, the regularity of unmitigated violence has left daily life in Kashmir in tatters. The violence has had an impact on almost every home and many families have no adult male members. The film looks at the impact of this violence on the lives of those left bereft by it. Women affected by the loss of their close ones have somatized the psychological devastation they have suffered onto their bodies. Young people have nothing to look forward to and a depressing environment has a cascading effect on children who see sadness and tragedy all around them.
The Textures of Loss
