The Films

Journeys With Kabir

4 films by Shabnam Virmani

view stills from the films at www.flickr.com/photos/kabirfest/sets/

(feel free to download the posters and share them)

These films journey into contemporary spaces touched by the music and poetry of the 15th century mystic weaver - poet of North India, Kabir. We meet a diverse array of people - an urban folklorist, a street fruit seller, a social activist, a Dalit folk singer, a Zen Buddhist scholar, a neo fascist cleric of a Kabir sect, a Muslim qawwal - each encounter offering a moment of insight into the poetry and its contemporary meanings. We glimpse not one but many Kabirs.

The 4 films are interwoven in significant ways, but each can be viewed independently.

Had -Anhad : Journeys with Ram And Kabir (Dur: 102 mins)

Kabir defied the boundaries between Hindu and Muslim. His name and upbringing were muslim but his poetry repeatedly invokes the widely revered Hindu name for god-Ram. Who is Kabir's Ram? This film journeys through song and poem into the politics of religion, and finds myriad answers on both sides of the border between India and Pakistan.

1st Prize (shared), One Billion eyes Documentary Film Festival, August 2008, Chennai

Mahindra Indo-Americal Arts Council Film Festival, Nov 5-9, New York, USA
World Performing Arts Festival, Nov 13-23, 2008, Lahore, Pakistan
Bangalore International Film Festival, Jan, 2009, Bangalore, India
Kala Ghoda Festival, Feb 7-8, 2009, Mumbai
VIBGYOR Film Festival, Feb, 2009, Thrissur, Kerala, India

Kabira Khada Bazar Mein : Journeys with Sacred and Secular Kabir (Dur: 94 min)

This film investigates the ironies and tensions between sacred and secular Kabir, interweaving the sacralization

of Kabir by the Kabir P

anth (an organized sect of the followers of Kabir) with the secular appropriation of the same poet by the social activist group Eklavya. The story unfolds through the life of Prahlad Tipanya, a Dalit singer whose participation in the Panth and Eklavya begins to raise difficult questions for him about ritual and organized religion.

One Billion Eyes Documentary Film Festival, August 2008, Chennai, India
World Performing Arts Festival, Nov 13-23, 2008, Lahore, Pakistan
VIBGYOR Film Festival, Feb, 2009, Thrissur, Kerala, India

Koi Sunta Hai : Journeys with Kumar and Kabir (Dur: 96 min)

This film interweaves the oral folk traditions of Kabir in central India with the intensely personal narrative of the late classical singer Pandit Kumar Gandharva, keeping the spiritual ideas of Kabir as the central binding thread. Journeying between folk and classical, between rural and urban expressions of Kabir, the film finds moments of both continuity and rupture between these disparate worlds.

One Billion Eyes Documentary Film Festival, August 2008, Chennai, India
World Performing Arts Festival, Nov 13-23, 2008, Lahore, Pakistan
VIBGYOR Film Festival, Feb, 2009, Thrissur, Kerala, India

Chalo Hamara Des: Journeys with Kabir and Friends (Dur: 98 min)

A journey in search of Kabir’s des (country) this film unfolds through the interwoven narratives of two people from two very different countries – Dalit folk singer Prahlad Tipanya and North American scholar Linda Hess. We enter the world of Kabir, through the personal and public lives of these two individuals, brought together in an unlikely friendship by the amazing universality and cross-cultural resonance of Kabir.

One Billion Eyes Documentary Film Festival, August 2008, Chennai, India
World Performing Arts Festival, Nov 13-23, 2008, Lahore, Pakistan
International Festival of Sacred Arts, Feb, 2009 Delhi, India
VIBGYOR Film Festival, Feb, 2009, Thrissur, Kerala, India