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Nasir
An unassuming salesman makes his way through a seemingly ordinary day
Speakers
A film by Arun Karthick
India-Netherlands | 80 mins | 2020 | Tamil, with English Subtitles
Nasir, the eponymous protagonist, is a quietly humorous romantic. He straggles through life to make ends meet with his job as a salesman at an apparel shop, so he can take care of an ailing mother and adopted son. Nasir’s day is as ordinary as any other – he takes a bath, speaks to his son, drops his wife off at the bus station, and goes about various chores that his job demands. We find him to be a nimble romantic, marshalling a love of love, song, children, friendship, and even God to rise into something resembling a life well lived, before his day takes a turn for the worse as communal bigotry rears its ugly head.
Based on a short story, A Clerk’s Tale by Dilip Kumar, Nasir denounces the irreparable effects of hate speech on human lives, in this particular instance the Muslim minority. A candid exposé of life as a second-class citizen, Arun Karthick’s second feature film Nasir had its World Premiere at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2020, where it won the NETPAC Award for Best Asian Film. An Indo-Dutch coproduction, the film was theatrically released across 21 screens in the Netherlands to rave reviews.
This is Nasir’s first screening in Bangalore. There will be a discussion with the director Arun Karthick and Thani Mudaliar after the screening, followed by a Q&A.
Cast
Valavane Koumarane as Nasir
Sudha Ranganathan as Taj
Sabari as Iqbal
Crew
Direction & Screenplay: Arun Karthick
Director of Photography: Saumyananda Sahi
Editor: Arghya Basu
Sound: Gautam Nair
Production Designer: Mausam Aggarwal
In collaboration with the Leftbank Film Society
Bangalore’s newest film society and a film collective, Leftbank Film Society aims to screen classic & contemporary world cinema on a regular basis in the city. Leftbank Film Society takes its name from the left bank of the river Seine in Paris, from where came the Leftbank group of filmmakers Agnes Varda, Chris Marker, Alain Resnais, and Alain Robbe-Grillet. The New Wave came from the Right Bank.
Speakers
Arun Karthick
Arun Karthick is an independent filmmaker based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. Self-taught, he began producing and directing short films at the age of seventeen. His debut feature Sivapuranam/The Strange Case of Shiva premiered in the Bright Future section of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), 2016. His second feature Nasir received the Hubert Bals Fund for Script and Project Development and the NFF+HBF Co-production fund. The film competed for the Tiger award at IFFR 2020 and won the NETPAC award for the Best Asian Film and went on to be screened in numerous festivals including New Directors/New Films by MOMA, American Film Institute, New Horizons, Hong Kong IFF, Taipei IFF, WE ARE ONE Global FF, and won the Grand Prix in Andrei Tarkovsky Zerkalo film festival, Russia. In 2021 Arun Karthick was chosen as honouree of the first BAFTA Breakthrough India Initiative.
Thani Mudaliar
A screenwriter and producer, Thani has co-written Anurag Kashyap’s Bombay Velvet (2015), and Zubaan (2016). Hailing from Bangalore, and a product of its film society movement, Thani is passionate about film collectives, film heritage, and the film society movement.
