FOREST CINEMA

TRACES OF THE VANISHING FOREST

DHARAMSHALA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL WITH RITU SARIN AND TENZING SONAM

Dharamshala International Film Festival’s peripatetic and constantly changing programme—DIFF On the Road—brings curated selections of films to venues and locations across India and beyond. DIFF On the Road was envisioned as part of the festival’s mandate to build networks of cinematic solidarity in South Asia and to extend the space for discourse around independent cinema. In keeping with Colomboscope’s thematic concern for this edition, DIFF On the Road showcases two films that delve deeply into the myths, legends, and spirits of disappearing forests, and their lingering impact on those forced to migrate to the concrete jungles of urban worlds.

Schedule:

• 421 Announcement
•  
• AN INVOCATION TO THE EARTH
  Yeo Siew Hua
  Singapore | 2020 | 16 min
•  
• THE FEVER
  Maya Da-Rin
  Brazil | 2019 | 98 min

RITU SARIN & TENZING SONAM

Indian-Tibetan filmmakers and artists, Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam have been working together for over thirty years. After completing their graduate studies in the US, they worked as independent filmmakers in London for many years before returning to India in 1996.

They have made several award-winning documentary films and video installations. Their documentary, The Sun Behind the Clouds (2009), won the Vaclav Havel Award at the One World Film Festival in Prague. They also made the Tibetan feature film, Dreaming Lhasa (2005), produced by Jeremy Thomas and Richard Gere, which premiered at the 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. Their video installations have shown at the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Savvy Contemporary (Berlin), Istanbul Biennale, Contour Biennale 8, Busan Biennale, Mori Art Museum, Thyssen- Bornemisza Art Contemporary and Khoj Studios Delhi, among other venues. Their most recent work, The Sweet Requiem, a narrative feature film with a Tibetan cast, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival 2018. Sarin and Sonam are also the directors of the Dharamshala International Film Festival, one of India’s leading independent film festivals, which they founded in 2012.