Made in collaboration with the activist collective Stree Shakhti Sanghatana, Is This Just a Story? is a departure from the real and ends up as improvised fiction. Shot in just one week, the film stands as a stark, moving portrait of domestic violence, one that will become Yugantar's most popular film. Its cast members put on a careful staging that sublimely reflects the darkness of intimacy. (JHE)
We are featuring the Spanish premiere of the restored films made by the Indian collective Yugantar. A truly landmark film because of how important its creators are, their pioneering feminism, their class consciousness in a country marked by the caste system. Founded in Bangalore in 1980 by Deepa Dhanraj, Abha Bhaiya, Navroze Contractor, and Meera Rao, this collective spent three years making films about the experiences of working-class women, highlighting their political engagement when taking on the various mechanisms of social violence. Inspiring and very timely, Yugantar's film work is a unique exponent of humanism and the poetics of resistance. (JHE)