Speakers
This evening brings together three short films, followed by a conversation between filmmakers Hansa Thapliyal and Paromita Vohra. Each film turns an intimate lens on questions of art, choice, and connection.
The Outside In
25m 03s | 2019 | English, Marathi with English Subtitles
Two dollmakers, working with simple, discarded materials, gently loosen our resistance to empathy. The film collaborates with them and their dolls, blurring the line between what lies outside us and within.
Kya Hai Ye Samjhauta
9m | 2024 | Hindi with English Subtitles
Born from twelve caseworkers’ recordings across rural Uttar Pradesh, this film uses scraps of cloth, needle and thread, and the timbre of human voices to explore women’s choices in the face of domestic violence. This film looks at the word samjhauta and asks: do you make your terms?
Duniya Kee Raunak
19m 40s | 2026 | Telugu, Marathi, Hindi with English Subtitles
Must a television screen decide what our lives will be like? Little Mansoor steps beyond his window to befriend the world outside. Blending shadow puppetry, theatre, and stop motion, the film is a tribute to the earliest, most playful histories of cinema.
Please Note: Children under 16 are to be accompanied by an adult.
Venue: Seminar Halls
Speakers
Hansa Thapliyal
Hansa Thapliyal is a filmmaker, dollmaker, teacher and animator. Her recent works have concentrated on how worlds of the imagination can be entered with ordinary, everyday material. An important origin of these interests has been her work on Kamal Swaroop’s Phalke Project, a multidisciplinary project that imaginatively dives into the world of early cinema in India. Inspired by visits and collaborations arising from that work, she has since shifted her filmmaking practice: one film centres on two doll makers, another uses fabric to tell a story about case workers addressing domestic violence in Bundelkhand, and a third is a collaboration with Surabhi Theatre and Thakkar Adivasi Kala Aangan.
Paromita Vohra
Paromita Vohra is a filmmaker and writer whose body of truth-telling, kinetic, and sensuous work explores feminism, gender, desire, urban life, and popular culture. She has directed documentaries including Unlimited Girls, Q2P, Where’s Sandra?, and Working Girls. She has written for the film Khamosh Pani/Silent Waters, the comic Priya’s Mirror, the play Ishqiya Dharavi Ishtyle, and the weekly newspaper column Paronormal Activity, now in its fifteenth year. In 2015, she founded Agents of Ishq, a pioneering digital platform transforming conversations on sex, love, and desire in India.
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