Film southasia
"Festival of southasian documentries"
02-05 DEC
2021
13th Edition
Of folk, rock and hip-hop, this documentary captures the rhythm and blues of resistance in the Kashmir valley. It is a portrait of those musicians and artists who have turned their art into weapons of resistance during periods of heightened state repression and violence in the region. As the Kashmiri satirist and poet Zareef Ahmad Zareef ponders over the credibility of his pen, a sparrow’s song of lament takes over; embarking us on a journey to discover the threads of people’s history of Kashmir, which have been preserved in the region’s folk poetry and music for centuries. A departure from Kashmir’s orientalist stereotype of a ‘paradise’ unfurls a transformed cultural landscape of the deeply militarized valley where spiritual ideals of Sufiyana music and traditional poetry metamorphose into political lyricism of modern Hip Hop and Rock. From underground artists and rock musicians to cartoonists and performance artists, the cultural practitioners in the film evoke collective memory of their people whilst negotiating with questions of survival, resistance and freedom – all deeply embroiled in the complex conflict of Kashmir.
