'Release Ajay TG' Film Festival

A ‘Release Ajay TG’ film festival is being organized in Mumbai on Sunday, August 3. According to the organizers, it is dedicated to all political prisoners who have been unlawfully and illegally detained in several parts of the country, while working for protecting the fundamental rights of every citizen. It is also in support of the demand for release of human rights activists Ajay TG and Dr. Binayak Sen, arrested in Chhattisgarh on charges of aiding extremists. .

Below is a list of films to be screened during the festival. The brief note on each film testifies to Ajay’s commitment to the cause of human rights and the remarkable work he has done during the past few years..

Anjam
20 mins 41 sec / 2007-08
Directed by Ajay TG

Documentary about Binayak Sen

Hathaure Wala (Man with the Hammer)
5 mins 46 sec / 1999
Directed by Ajay TG

A portrait of an 80-year old blacksmith who works in the shadow of the Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh. This is Ajay's first film and one from the first trio of films made at Jandarshan.

The Other Side of the Mirror
7 mins 26 sec

An extract of an unfinished film, which links a critique of Indian chauvinism with the contrast between the education of rich and poor children. It then introduces the school which Ajay started.

Aisa Kyon?
1 min 51sec / 2007 / Original Language
A short drama devised and shot by girls at the school run by Ajay TG. The brief was to focus on an issue which affects them. In this film they chose discrimination in education. It was to have been the first of a series of such short dramas on various issues but the project has been interrupted by Ajay's imprisonment.

Photographs
5 mins 57 sec / 2007

A sequence of stills taken by girls in the school Ajay runs, put in order and set to music.

Golapalli: A Fact Finding by the PUCL
15 mins / 2004
Direction, Camera, Editing and Graphics by Ajay TG

This film describes an incident in which two school teachers and a student were killed by paramilitary forces in Golapalli, Tehsil Konta, District Bastar. The film is based on testimonies of the people of the village to a fact finding team of the Peoples Union for Civil Liberties.

Jiramtarai: A Fact Finding by the PUCL
15 mins / 2004
Editing and Graphics by Ajay TG

Through interviews of peasant men and women of the village, this film investigates an incident when the CRPF ostensibly provoked by a mine blasted by Naxalites had entered into the fields and village of Jiramtarai and killed three people.

The Journey (Safar)
15 mins 7 sec / 2001 / English subtitles
Directed by Reeta Chandel and Ajay TG

A Jandarshan student film about Reeta's father, a porter in the hospital of the Bhilai Steel Plant. This film is a development of Reeta's 5 minute film, Papa Says, shot by Ajay, as part of an earlier student exercise. The Journey was made because Ajay felt that they should explore questions about marriage and gender which had come up by chance during the shooting of the earlier film.

Living Memory
33 mins 41sec / 2002 / English narration and subtitles
Directed by Shobha Ajay / Co-Directed and partly shot by Ajay TG

A Jandarshan student production, Living Memory is a personal, autobiographical film in which Shobha reflects on her roots in an Andhra Christian community, her marriage with Ajay, a Hindu from Kerala, and grieves for her beloved father who died of cancer during the filming.

Letters and Learning / English subtitles
41 mins / 2003
Directed by Ajay TG

A film about an elderly Satnami who got a job in the Bhilai Steel Plant in return for giving up land, and how he prospered, enabling his daughter to become a school teacher and his granddaughter a doctor. Ajay got to know him when working as Jonathan Parry's field assistant. This Jandarshan student film is not only a biography, but also a critique of attitudes to literacy and knowledge.

Bhook ke Virudh, Bhat ke liye . . . (That No One May Go Hungry)
49 mins / 2004 / Original Language
Direction, Camera, Editing and Graphics by Ajay TG
A documentary about food diversification and the right to food in India.

More information on the campaign as well as Ajay's work is available on
http://www.releaseajaytg.in/ajaytg.html