24th Madurai Film Festival 2022 : Filmmaker in Focus - Prathap Joseph

24th Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2022

6-10 Dec, multiple venues, Madurai 

Filmmaker in Focus : Prathap Joseph

Started career as a Journalist in leading Malayalam newspaper. Self taught photographer who turned cinematographer and director. Active in film- making from 2010. 

Founder, Independent and Experimental Film Festival of Kerala

Founder, Minimal Cinema Film Society 

Founder, Light Source Photographic Society

Director, New Wave Film School

Films to be shown :

Randuper Chumbikkumpol (When two Kiss)

2017 / 70 minutes

An intruder, in his mobile shoots the scene of a pair of lovers hugging on a beach. He tries to blackmail them.

Director Note: The film Randuper Chumbikkumbol (When two Kiss) is conceived on the

background of Kiss of Love Protest that started in Kerala in 2014 and partially spread to other states of India later. Kiss of Love started as a protest against moral policing.The film is around the theme of hegemonic sexual morality’s potential to determine the nature of relationships and its intervention in personal relationships. the film does not attempt to tell a story. Three shots of three situations are there. The cast and crew of the film are persons involved in Kiss of Love. The film is inspired by the story Oru Drishtantha Katha (A Moral Story) by the Malayalam writer M D Radhika.

Cinematography, Script, Direction: Prathap Joseph / Sound: Amrith Shankar / Editing: Anand Pottekkat / Cast: Archana Padmini, Mini IG, S. Pradeep, Sarath Kovilakam, Byju Netto.

Puzhayal (Merman) 

2021 / 64 minutes

This documentary is about a man named Palakkal Abdul Kader. He is a 74 - year - old ordinary man living in Kuttikkadav near Mavoor, Kerala. For the last fifteen years he removes plastic waste from the river Cherupuzha, one of the tributaries of Chaliyar river. The struggle against Mavoor Gwalior Ryons' polluting of air and water is a land mark in the history of environmental movements in Kerala. Mavoor wetland spreading over 300 acres, is a paradise of migratory birds.

Cinematography, Script, Direction: Prathap Joseph /  Sound: Shaiju M / Editing: Anand Pottekkat, Ashwin Raj.

Short films by Prathap Joseph

1. Frame 

Year: 2003

Duration: 7.20 minutes

Won't to know how or where to fix a frame, you and I are trapped. The earth is round, but we are ensqured. Cinema itself is a square. This film is about the frame in which film and life are caught.

2. See...?

Year :2010

Duration: 18.12 Minutes

A spider weaving his web. Lives around are also busy. Do we see it all?

3. Medit-e-ating

Year 2013

Duration: 11 Minutes

A moth becomes a butterfly. Meanwhile a meditation takes place.

4. 52 Seconds

A satirical take on statutory warnings imposed by the Censor Board. 

Camera & Direction : Prathap Joseph 

Concept : Sudevan

Year: 2017
Duration: 52 Seconds

A satirical take on statutory warning imposed by the censor board.

Prathap Joseph will present his films and will take part in the post screening interactions.

24th Madurai Film Festival 2022 : Retrospective - Joshy Joseph

24th Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2022

6-10 Dec, multiple venues, Madurai

Highlight # 1

Retrospective : Joshy Joseph

Joshy Joseph has, as a maker of unique documentaries, consistently extended and blurred the boundaries that separate factual record from creative filmmaking, until these demarcations no longer serve any useful purpose. Joseph is concerned with the unfixed nature of our globalised world, but his approach isn't thematic.

He had won six National Awards for making films and one National Award for writing on Cinema from the President of India.He is an author of three books in Malayalam. Had associated with poet Dunya Mikhail for a film with her autobiographical poems. Worked with famed filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan. Participated in a script writing workshop by Jean Claude Carrier at French Embassy. Officially associated while shooting 'Life of Pi' with Hollywood Director Ang Lee.

List of films to be shown :

1) One Day from a Hangman's Life (83 min)

"One Day From A Hangman's Life" – a film made by me, revolves around the highly debated event of 2004 in Kolkata – that of the hanging of Dhananjoy Chatterjee – a rapist, and the media hype on the hangman, Nata Mallik. It documents an eventful day and captures the hangman in all his hues and the media at its manipulative best in a candid manner.

'ONE DAY FROM A HANGMAN'S LIFE' is a fusion of life and death. Life finding its fulfillment in death. And fact finds its culmination in fiction. This is not about a murder, but it's about a 'murderer's
murder'. Not personal, but a social murder of how death is sanctified by a social sanction. The film naturally becomes a self-criticism of our social system itself. And in a way it shows the other side of
human emotions or the bi-polarity of emotions of how we revel in crime, in violence and how we relish things, which we deny in waking life.

2) Walking Over Water (89 min)

Walking Over Water is an auto fiction,which is a blend of fiction and nonfiction and curiously ,the filmmaker is visually absent in this experimental film.

3) Aribam Syam Sharma- Laparoscopic Cinemascapes (62 min)

This film is a stylistic antithesis of Manipuri Maestro Aribam Syam Sharma, in the usage of idiom of cinema, capturing the soul of this artist and its stirring cultural text through an intense conversation with Joshy Joseph.

4) Mizo Soundscapes (22 min)

Mizo Soundscapes is a visual - visceral -aural journey through a phase in Mizo History.

Joshy Joseph will present his films and will take part in the discussions.

Support Madurai Film Festival 2022

SUPPORT 24th Madurai Film Festival 2022

Dear friends!

Greetings.

We have been organising the Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2022 in Madurai since 1998 in association with various cultural, social and educational institutions.

The idea behind the film festival is to nurture a documentary culture in Tamilnadu. We try to reach out to around 1000 persons every year through our film festivals that includes film screening, discussion, master classes and cultural programs.

We have brought more than 100 filmmakers including Anand Patwardhan, KP Sasi, Sarat Chandran, P Baburaj, Pankaj Butalia, Sehjo Singh, Rakesh Sharma, Madhusree Dutta, RV Ramani, Swarnavel, Amshan Kumar, Gargi Sen, Lalit Vachani, Anjali Monteiro, KP Jayasankar, Leena Manimekalai, Someetharan, Vinod Raja, Deepu, Sreemith and others to our  previous editions.

We are getting ready with our next chapter, the 24th Madurai Film Festival 2022 to be held on 6-10 December at multiple venues.

We are planning to screen around 75 films under the following sections :

1) International films

2) Indian films

3) Retrospective : Joshy Joseph

4) Filmmaker in Focus : Divya Bharathi 

5) Filmmaker in Focus : Prathap Joseph

6) Director's Cut : films curated by Amudhan R.P.

As you know we run the film festival only with the financial contributions from like minded people and organisations, kindly contribute financially and support our effort. Our expected budget of the film festival will be around Rs..1.25 lakh, which includes travel for the main guests, stay for the filmmakers, local travel and food for the organising team, publishing festival book, handouts and posters, internet rent and buying necessary accessories. 

Our bank details :

R Amudhan, Indian Overseas Bank, 80 feet Road branch, Madurai 625020

SB ac no: 213301000011705; IFSC : IOBA0002133.

Gpay : 9940642044 / R.Amudhan

Looking forward to your positive reply.

Regards

Amudhan R.P.

Festival Director

24th Madurai Film Festival 2022