• 3rd i's Speaker Series: Snakes, Sirens and Vamps: A Short History of Early Indian Cinema

• 3rd i copresents at PFA: Gamperaliya, James Lester Peries, Sri Lanka, 1964 *Newly Restored Print*

3rd i South Asian Independent Film presents
as part of its Speaker Series

Snakes, Sirens and Vamps: A Short History of Early Indian Cinema
A talk illustrated with clips, by Anupama Kapse
(Live musical accompaniment for select clips)

G. P. Pawar and Lalitha Pawar in Gallant Hearts (Aggarwal Film Company, 1931)

Copresented with: The San Francisco Silent Film Festival
When: Friday, July 24, 2009, 7:30pm
Where: Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
Cost: $8 (Tickets at the door only)

Cinema inspired the imagination of the subcontinent very early in its history -- just years after the birth of film in the late 1800s. Mythological magic, swashbuckling adventure and romance formed the staple of early Indian cinema, which had found its own sophisticated language drawn from a strong tradition of story-telling and theater. By the time the National Film Archive was created in the 60s, a large part of this rich cinematic heritage had been lost to the vagaries of tropical heat and rain. But some gems remain. 3rd i is proud to bring you this opportunity, as part of its Speaker Series, to see rare excerpts from some of the earliest films from the subcontinent, including: India's film pioneer, D.G. Phalke's Kaliya Mardan (1919), about the exploits of a young Krishna; Gallant Hearts (1931), an adventure-romance modeled after The Thief of Baghdad (1924); films from the legendary Bombay Talkies studio; and early sound films like Achut Kanya (1936) and Aadmi (1939).

Anupama Kapse will provide an introduction to each film, and lead us through a short history of early Indian cinema, from the silent era into the arrival of sound on the Indian filmscape. All films will be presented in a digital format; since most of these films have not been restored, the quality of some of the clips reflects the archival nature of the prints. Live musical accompaniment will be provided for select clips.

About the Speaker:
Anupama Kapse will be joining Queens College as Assistant Professor media studies this fall. Berkeley. Her doctoral thesis, The Moving Image: Melodrama and Early Cinema in India, 1913-1947, examines the genres of Indian silent cinema through a melodramatic lens. She is currently co-editing a collection of essays, Border Crossings: Silent Cinema and the Politics of Space (with Jennifer Bean and Laura Horak, forthcoming Indiana UP). Prior to joining the PhD. program in film studies at UC Berkeley, Kapse taught at Gargi College, University of Delhi, India, where she was Assistant Professor of English. She has lectured widely on silent cinema in India and works on film history, gender and the visual culture of "Bollywood."

3rd i copresents at the Pacific Film Archive:

Gamperaliya, James Lester Peries
(Sri Lanka, 1964)

When: August 9, 2009, 6:45pm
Where: Pacific Film Archive Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way, Between College and Telegraph, Berkeley, CA
Cost: $9.50 (see PFA website for more ticket details)

(A.k.a. Changing Village). Lester James Peries’s Gamperaliya is regarded as a cornerstone of Sri Lankan cinema, launching upon its release in 1964 “a revolution, not only in the way films were made, but also in the content,” according to producer Anton Wickramasinghe. Peries sought an alternative to the Bollywood-influenced melodramas that dominated Sri Lanka’s commercial cinema, writing stories that looked at the staple issues of melodrama in a more nuanced way. Read more>>