Over the last few decades, we have seen how rapid population growth, high densities, poverty and high differentials in access to housing, public services and infrastructure have led to an increase in vulnerability, especially in India’s urban centres.
Previous editions of Nagari have looked at the state of housing and the challenges of livelihood that exist within this rapid urbanisation. This year, Nagari will focus on a single idea of how stories in urban India are tied to water.
WATER IN URBAN INDIA
Click on the image above to learn more about 10 Final films.Click on the image to know about the winning entries.Click on the image above to learn more about the shortlisted entries
Film by Sanchay Bose, Pramathyu Shukla, Shubham Sengupta and Rudraksh Pathak Mentor Arjun Gourisaria
Jury Citation:
‘Taal Betal’ is laudable as it uses the strength of film’s visual storytelling to reveal the devastating impact of urban development on water bodies and the lives that depend on them. Through an investigation of Jabalpur’s lakes, we experience the impact of pollution on the livelihood of the Singharia community, originally water chestnut farmers, who have now turned to fishing — which is also then affected by the lack of oxygen in the water.
It is a very well-structured and legible film, a documentary that recalls the fact that Jabalpur’s lakes were made for its citizens, a progressive urban planning move. The film calls out to viewers to take more care of our waterways and the layers of life that depend on them – including our own.
Film by Avadhoot Potdar, Akanksha Gupta and Akshata Dalvi Mentor: Arjun Gourisaria
Jury Citation:
‘The Golden Fish’ is commendable as a testament to livelihood as ‘disruption’ in an urbanscape. It illustrates, quite beautifully, how Goa – with its unique geography and society – has been negatively impacted by the floating casinos and their influence. The insights into the life of the young North-Eastern women who work in the casinos are sensitive and evoke questions of “localness” in a cosmopolitan state like Goa.
The use of opulent visuals of the casinos and their branding, as contrasted with disembodied voices for locals, is representative of the way that the industry has now taken up space that once belonged to the city. The women who work on the casino boats are objectified, the locals are ignored, and a kleptocratic system perpetuates exploitation and alienation. The boats themselves are operated by people that are from a different part of the nation, servicing alien crowds that come in from other states and countries, a disconnect between the two worlds. The film also illustrates issues that can be reversed, through advocacy and policy, exemplifying film’s ability to raise public awareness.
Film by Atish Indrekar and Ruchika Chhara Mentor: Sanjiv Shah
Jury Citation:
‘Darudi’ is commendable as it does the hard work of giving voice to a community stigmatised as a criminal tribe by the colonial administration, a burden they carry until today, and of opposing views around the hidden world of distilling alcohol in Chharanagar, in the city of Ahmedabad. It is an uncomfortable story, in the best tradition of documentary filmmaking, that forces viewers to confront historic injustice, an inheritance from colonial times that still continues to circumscribe and constrain. The narrative, largely through song, is intricately crafted and inter-woven with interviews to convey a sense of anguish and disempowerment.
‘Darudi’ provides an intimate experience of how people born into and living in this state of injustice must grapple with the quandary of doing ‘right or wrong’ while pursuing the right to a livelihood that takes care of one’s family and children.
Film by Aakash Chhabra, Snigdha Sharma, Vedant, Om Prakash and Koushik Tamilmaran Mentor: Rajula Shah
Jury Citation:
‘An Ordinary Day’ is acknowledged for presenting a deeply personal and moving take on the livelihood crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. The melancholic tone and the stark aesthetic of the yarn recycling facility were incredibly effective. While there was a single voice and a single story, the film spoke for so many more people, across cities in India who faced this crashing devastation in livelihood, migration and economic chaos.
Film by Aman Jajoria and Simran Raswant Mentor: Bina Paul
Partnership Below Par is a documentary that explores the story of four delivery “partners” as they navigate through the millennium city of Gurugram (previously known as Gurgaon), questioning how the city facilitates their ability to earn a living along with their stakes in this “partnership” within the gig economy.
By Bhawna Jaimini and Moin Khan Mentor: Sanjiv Shah
Shot through the lens of Moin Khan – a young rapper and an aspiring filmmaker, the film explores the challenges, struggles and triumphs of him and his neighbours in Govandi, Mumbai. It looks at how the Muslim youth are negotiating within their homes, where cultural norms and financial limitations dictate their aspirations, as well as outside in the city – where spatial boundaries dictate not just their present but their socio-economic future. It attempts to bring out how opportunity and aspiration intersects with cultural and spatial identity of people of Govandi, dictating their present and future.
Click the poster to watch the film or follow the link here.
A Marathi rap music video about the issues faced by citizens at the hands of exploitative builders in a nexus with the government, providing them woefully inadequate housing facilities. Language: Marathi with English subtitles
A City Within A City
Click the poster to watch the film or follow the link here.
Confronting the communal nature of the city of Ahmedabad by focusing on the neighborhood and houses of Juhapura, one of India’s largest Muslim ghettos.
Beyond Four Walls
Click the poster to watch the film or follow the link here.
A film that explores the relationship between access to livelihood and housing, through a comparison between Parry’s Corner and Kannagi Nagar, two neighbourhoods in Chennai.
Udta Banaras
Click the poster to watch the film or follow the link here.
An attempt to document displacement and resettlement due to the Kashi Vishwanath Corridor, through the experiences of Rinku Kannaujia, a former resident of the Dalit Basti near the temple. The film looks at his experience of displacement while questioning what development means for a culturally rich city like Banaras
Fish out of Water
Click the poster to watch the film or follow the link here.
Exploring the changing realities of the Koli community of Mumbai. One of Mumbai’s native inhabitants who live along its coastline have seen it all, from the 7 islands to the bustling and ever growing metropolis that the city has now become. Shot across three Koliwadas, the urban fishing villages in which the Koli’s reside, in Khar Danda, Madh and Versova, we have tried to mirror the Kolis as they navigate through their daily lives, from the sea where they go to catch the fish early morning, to the fish auctions at the end of each day and the time in between where life has other things in store for them.
Water Water Everywhere
Click the poster to watch the film or follow the link here.
In Guwahati city, flash floods occur every year, the reason being the Brahmaputra river flowing beside it overflows. Meanwhile, people struggle for drinking water every day in this same city. This reminds us of the famous lines by Samuel Taylor Coleridge “Water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink”!
Adrushya Niwasi
Click the poster to watch the film or follow the link here.
The film unpacks the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in highlighting the prevalent housing inadequacies for the migrant in the city of Mumbai.
Jar jar ghar
Click the poster to watch the film or follow the link here.
A documentary about century-old buildings on the verge of collapsing and the generational tenants who live here with nowhere better to go. With a glimpse into the rehabilitation policies of the state of Maharashtra, the film tells multiple stories of families in south Mumbai who are caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.
Day One
Click the poster to watch the film or follow the link here.
Debajit, a young man from a village in Lower Assam arrives in Guwahati with the hope of a better livelihood. The city unfolds to him as a space etched on a discursive landscape and temporality; bearing signs of the past, present and future. His journey in his day one of the city pings him with a feeling of displacement-emotional as well as physical
Game of Homes
Click the poster to watch the film or follow the link here.
A film which portrays speculation on real-estate in Goa, questioning the affordability of housing in the state, depicted through a game of Monopoly.
Pradeep Dalal directs the Andy Warhol Foundation’s Arts Writers Grant Program in New York. He was co-chair of Photography at the Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts at Bard College.
sankalp meshram
Sankalp Meshram is an Indian Director, Editor, Writer and Producer, working in Mumbai since 1994. An Alumnus of FTII, Pune, he has won Five National Awards and one IDPA Award. He has made many notable films on Architecture, specially on the Architecture of Charles Correa, Music and Dance apart from having made an award winning Fiction Feature Film ‘Chhutkan Ki Mahabharat’.
Snehanshu Mukherjee
Snehanshu Mukherjee has over 34 years of experience in the field of architecture and planning. He also has over 28 years of experience of being an academician. He graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.
Shilpa Ranade
Shilpa Ranade trained in architecture at CEPT, Ahmedabad and did her graduate work in Cultural Studies at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Shilpa has co-authored an influential book on women and public space in Mumbai called “Why Loiter?” published by Penguin Books India in 2011.
Paromita Vohra
Paromita Vohra is a filmmaker and writer whose work focuses on gender, feminism, urban life, love, desire and popular culture and spans many forms including documentary, fiction, print, video and sound installation. She has directed and written many films, ‘Partners in Crime’ in the year 2011 is one such film.
Sanjiv Shah is a film editor, producer, and filmmaker engaged largely with documentaries dealing with social issues, and exploring forms of film. As a part of the exhibition The State of Housing (2018) in Mumbai, he directed a video looking at the housing crisis in India over the last 70 years.
bina paul
Bina Paul works mainly in Malayalam-language films. She has over fifty editing credits and has directed four documentaries. Her first editing work was in 1985 on Aravindan’s documentary The Seer Who Walks Alone and her first feature film work was on Abraham’s Amma Ariyan in 1986. Paul won her first National Film Award for Revathi’s Mitr, My Friend, which had an all-woman crew.
Avijit Mukul Kishore
Avijit Mukul Kishore is a filmmaker and cinematographer, working in documentary and interdisciplinary moving image practices. He’s involved in cinema pedagogy as a lecturer and curates film programmes for prominent national cultural institutions.
Rajula Shah
Rajula is a Poet, Filmmaker & Visual Artist. Her practice emerges through close collaboration with people, their histories & environments exploring boundaries of fiction/non-fiction through New Media. Developing new strategies for the study & practice of Cinema in changing contexts is a concern with her.
Tarun Bhartiya
Tarun is a political activist, documentary imagemaker and Hindi poet from Shillong.
The first edition of the Nagari Short Film Competition addresses the subject of Housing Adequacy in Urban India. It attempted to not only use film as a medium to narrate the issues, but really to expand an understanding of the subject and extend its representation and relevance in India.
housing adequacy in urban india
In 2020, the Nagari Short Film Competition focussed on the question: “How could one tell the story of housing adequacy in urban India”?
Click on the image to learn more about the final films!Click on the image to learn more about the winning entries!
Click on the image to watch the join Award Ceremony for the Nagari Short Film Competition 2020 and Z-axis: You and Your Neighbourhood Design Competition
This blog explores the key elements of adequate housing as recognized by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Film as a medium has played an important role in generating awareness on social issues. This blog is a list of films that address housing and issues related to housing infrastructure in India. It is not an exhaustive list but a short collection of films available in the public domain.
Click on the image to learn more about the Nagari 2020 Short Film Competition Brief
“An equally important facet of the right to life is the right to livelihood because no person can live without the means of livelihood.” — Excerpt from the unanimous judgement of The Supreme Court of India in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, 1985.
This year, Nagari will address the subject of people and livelihoods in Indian cities. It will attempt to not only use film as a medium to narrate the issues, but really to expand an understanding of the subject and extend its representation and relevance in India.
“An equally important facet of the right to life is the right to livelihood because no person can live without the means of livelihood.” — Excerpt from the unanimous judgement of The Supreme Court of India in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation.
In 2020, the Nagari Short Film Competition focused on the question:
“How could one tell the story of housing adequacy in urban India”?
India has the largest number of urban poor and landless people in the world. According to the 2011 census, approximately 13.75 million households, or approximately 65 – 70 million people, reside in urban slums. Homeless people, based on the 2011 census, are an additional 1.8 million. The numbers are staggering. In some cities, such as Mumbai, those residing in slums represent around 50% of its population. Housing, and more importantly adequate housing, is in a state of crisis in India – a case reinforced by the migrant exodus that we witnessed in Indian cities in March 2020, as a result of a national lockdown imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Nagari 2021 addresses the subject of people and livelihoods in Indian cities in an attempt not only to use film as a medium to narrate the issues, but really to expand an understanding of the subject and extend its representation and relevance.
Film as a medium has played an important role in generating awareness on social issues. This blog lists films that draw parallels to this years’ subject of scrutiny. The list of course is not exhaustive, but is a collection of films – suggestions made by the mentors of Nagari Short Film Competition 2021 and the Charles Correa Foundation.
In 2021, keeping in mind restrictions due to COVID-19, participants may also work with found material and footage so long as IP and copyright laws are respected.
The second edition of the Nagari Short Film Competition addresses the subject of People and Livelihoods in Urban India. It attempted to not only use film as a medium to narrate the issues, but really to expand an understanding of the subject and extend its representation and relevance in India.
PEOPLE AND LIVELIHOODS IN URBAN INDIA
“An equally important facet of the right to life is the right to livelihood because no person can live without the means of livelihood.” — Excerpt from the unanimous judgement of The Supreme Court of India in Olga Tellis v. Bombay Municipal Corporation, 1985.
Click on the image to learn more about the nine films! Click on the image to know about the winning entries.
This blog explores and attempts to understand the key elements and delineate the scope and substance of the framework of livelihood with particular emphasis on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis in urban India.
Film as a medium has played an important role in generating awareness on social issues. This blog is a list of films that address people trying to earn a livelihood in urban India. It is not an exhaustive list but a short collection of films available in the public domain.
Click on the image to learn more about the Nagari 2021 Short Film Competition Brief
A public retrospective of Nagari films, showing the 10 short films that were made for the 2020 competition. The programme will consist of a screening, followed by discussion with the filmmakers, moderated by the Charles Correa Foundation team as a launch of Nagari 2021 — ‘People and Livelihoods’ in Indian cities.
We hope that watching and discussing ‘ReRuns’ brings continuity between the previous and the current focus, seeing the connection from Housing Adequacy to People and Livelihoods. It will attempt not only to see film as a medium to narrate the issues, but really to initiate discussion on inadequacies in the urban realm and extend its representation and relevance in India.
Watch all 10 episodes of Nagari ReRuns on YouTube HERE
A City Within A City shows us the sociological fallout in Juhapura, a small locality in Ahmedabad, post the riots of 2002. The film covers a very urgent and powerful issue giving a strong message in the most straightforward way. The film speaks of ghettoization and segregation, something that we rarely discuss when speaking of urbanism and urban planning. The film presents a microcosmic individual problem of a particular family and how they are looking not only at the immediate problems while also dealing with their aspirations. The juxtaposition of the historical context of the place and people’s aspiration to build an independent community despite the apathy of the state, makes the audience value housing beyond the practicality of spaces. The film is poignant, empathetic and yet never looking at people who have suffered in a flattened way as victims but rather celebrating their resilience, showing how attitudes, policy, law and history are all integrated.
Udta Banaras alludes to the fact that cities keep changing with regimes and the people inside the city don’t really have a choice in where they go and which part of the city they can be in. It highlights the hurt and the absolute dislocation that’s caused by urban renewal projects and the impact of policies that have been put into place without taking into recognition the inhabitants in those neighbourhoods. The imaging and the imagery in the film was extraordinarily beautiful and compelling. The protagonist was very interesting and charismatic, bringing together a lot of complex ideas about home, his own identity, his own home, but also this idea of Banaras itself. It’s through his photographs that we get to see when we see that the famous Vishwanath gully has been completely taken away and made into some kind of piazza which is shocking and very cleverly done.
Film by Atharva Salaskar, Vaibhav Kadam and Aditya Desai
Mentor Avijit Mukul Kishore
A Marathi rap music video about the issues faced by citizens at the hands of exploitative builders in a nexus with the government, providing them woefully inadequate housing facilities.
This year, the Nagari Short Film Competition is looking for films that address the question, “How could one tell the story of housing adequacy in urban India”?
