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ASIA PREMIERE |
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| Morality TV and The Loving Jihad -
A Thrilling Tale |
| Morality TV Aur Loving Jihad - Ek Manohar
Kahani |
| India / 2007 / 31 min / Hindi |
| Paromita Vohra |
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| Synopsis |
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| In winter 2005 in the town of Meerut, India, police officers, mostly
women, swooped down on lovers in a park and began to beat them up.
Along with them they took photographers and news cameramen with a
promise of an exclusive sting operation. As images of the operation
played again and again on every news channel as 'breaking news',
Meerut saw some of the couples run away out of fear and shame and
serial protests for and against the event, which also made the news for
some days. The film looks at a town's complex dynamics – the fear of
love, the constant scrutiny and control of women's mobility and
sexuality, a history of communal violence, caste and feudal equations.
Assuming the tone of pulp fiction it examines the relishing accounts of
true crime magazines like 'Manohar Kahaniyan' (The Thrilling Tales) to
the double morality of pulp detective fiction to the tabloid news on
Indian TV. |
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| Director's Biography |
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| Paromita Vohra is a filmmaker,
writer and a media activist whose
films have focused on issues of
gender, politics, urban life and
popular media. Her fifteen years in
filmmaking have included works in
documentary, television drama,
music shows, feature films and short
fictions. Her recent films as a director
include Q2P (2006), Where is Sandra (2005) and her films as a writer
include Skin Deep (1998), Khamosh Pani (2003) among others. |
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| The Rights Angle 2009 |
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| The idea of love is restricted and romance is not an open practise in middle class India. Social interaction with the
opposite sex may be limited but not at all absent and in fact occurs surreptitiously. Media, in the desperate effort to hype
their ratings unethically use the method of sting operation and live TV to sensationalise and harass unsuspecting lovers. In
a society riddled with caste, religion and feudal inequalities, such harassment can have major social implications for the
protagonists. |
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Awards |
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Best Short Documentary, International
Film Festival of Kerela 2007 |
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Print Source |
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Paromita Vohra / D-404, Trans Apartment, Mahakali Caves Road,
opp. Sai Baba Temple, Andheri (E), Mumbai-400093, India
parodevi@gmail.com
22-2837796 |
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