Guttermoons - A Festival of Activist Cinema

19 September 2014-21 September 2014

Activism as a form has remained difficult to trace historically both in the world and in cinema. Activism carries within itself the preconceived notions and disjointed images of protesters, fire, slogans, placards, violence, and subsequently it is always perceived as bearing political and social connotations. It is for the same reason that society still awaits an objective and all-encompassing definition of the verb activism. The world eagerly seeks to bypass this word and its conceptual, sinister implication by ascribing the reason of its intent to the absence of this word within the pages of a dictionary. This amounts to viewing activism merely as one of the many activities of people with its own set of dress code, rules, procedures and stereotypes instead of allotting it the much deserved categorization- that of an imperative action which comprises of qualities of inquiry, argument, opposition and resistance that occur naturally to the human psyche.

Kiran Nadar Museum of Art and Lightcube presented Gutter Moons, a series of films that were activist not because they followed a predetermined set of notions and agendas but because their very existence aimed towards resisting the world around them. Their activism is thus an intrinsic part of their composition. The Inextinguishable Fire by Harun Farocki, Ms. 45 by Abel Ferrara, Statues also Die by Alain Resnais and Chris Marker, Harakiri by Masaki Kobayashi and Contra City by Djibril Diop Mambety were the films that were screened during this festival, including a special screening of the film Ab tak Muzzafarpur.