Screening: An Indian Story (1982) and Mukti Chai (1977)

Join the Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery for a screening of An Indian Story (1982, dir. Tapan Bose and Suhasini Mulay) and Mukti Chai (1977 dir. Utpalendu Chakraborty) with commentary by Dipti Gupta.

This event will take place at the gallery by RSVP. Mask and proof of vaccination required.

Considering the premise of Constitutions, professor and filmmaker Dipti Gupta has drawn from Concordia University’s collection of Indian independent documentaries to offer a lens through which to examine India’s current political, social and visual environment. Gupta will screen An Indian Story (1982), Tapan Bose and Suhasini Mulay’s trenchant documentary on caste violence in Bihar, and Mukti Chai (1977), Utpalendu Chakraborty’s short and forceful call for political prisoners’ freedom, before sharing commentary on the current politicization of the visual field in Indian media. A rare opportunity to see foundational Indian political documentaries, Gupta will provide a long view on struggles for human rights and representation in India from the late twentieth century to today and open a discussion on the increasing fraught terrain of popular media.

Dipti Gupta is a teacher, researcher and independent documentary filmmaker. She teaches full-time in the department of Cinema-Communication at Dawson College and part-time at the Fine Arts Department at Concordia University. She currently serves on the board of Teesri Duniya Theatre, a Montreal-based culturally diverse theatre company, as well as on the advisory board of the digital magazine, Montreal Serai. Dipti has worked with the Indian documentary film collective Cinemart Foundation in India, who have produced several award-winning social and educational documentaries and short films. She has been a festival organizer and director for the South Asian Film Festival in Montreal from 2011 until 2019 and served as a jury member for the Yorkton Film Festival in Saskatchewan and the Quebec Writers Federation.

This series of public programs is part of the exhibition Constitutions, presented at the Gallery from November 3, 2021 to January 22, 2023.

Digitization of the films courtesy of the Visual Collections Repository (VCR), Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University.