“Good documentaries don’t necessarily change your mind; they do, however, prompt you to take your opinions out of mothballs and give them an airing. Jashn-e-Azadi is that sort of a film.”- Mukul Kesavan, The Telegraph
Indie-India is pleased to announce the DVD release of ‘Jashn-e-Azadi – How We Celebrate Freedom‘, a new documentary by Sanjay Kak, an award-winning documentary filmmaker based in New-Delhi. The film is a sensitive portrayal of a fractured land, exploring the Indian Army’s presence in Kashmir and examining the meaning of freedom for the people who live there. Noted as “the boldest political statement in the contemporary Kashmiri discourse” (Showkat A Motta, “Greater Kashmir“), “Jashn-e-Azadi is exceptional in its ability to shed light on the current state of affairs in Kashmir, a natural catalyst to spur needed further discussion within the community.” The film has already generated strong reactions the world over, with praise for its courageous honesty, to outrage from some quarters in India: last year police stopped several screenings in Mumbai. The film itself is however a beautifully told story of the lives of ordinary people in an extreme situation that resonates with the pictures of conflict we see on our screens from many other zones of conflict the world over. As a consequence of the troubles the film ran into with the Police in Mumbai, all kinds of audiences came to the support of the film. In the months since then there have been more than 140 small, medium, whatever of the film in India and a successful screening tour in the US. Sanjay says, “this is a growing tendency in India, the ability of audiences to take on our antiquated censorship rules by simply screening films. The availability of the film for an online download will be an integral part of such audience strategies in the future.” The film played to a packed house at the world’s largest international documentary festival in Amsterdam in Nov. 2007. Born in 1958, Sanjay read Economics and Sociology at Delhi University, and is a self-taught film-maker who first discovered the documentary while working in television (1984-1990). Based in New Delhi, he is actively involved in the Indian documentary film movement, as part of the Films for Freedom platform, the Delhi Film Archive, and in the Campaign against Censorship. Click here to see the filmmaker interview.Visit Film Blog here
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