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Friday, September 21, 2012

Gangor

Has anyone heard of this film?

It’s an Italian film called ‘Gangor’, directed by Italo Spinelli, which has a English name, ‘Behind the Bodice’ and a really sleazy Hindi title, ‘Choli Ke Peeche’. Really. The film is directed by an Italian guy, but features an all-Indian cast, including Adil Hussain and Priyanka Bose in the lead. The film is inspired by a Mahasweta Devi story, also titled in English as ‘Behind the Bodice’. The film deals with Devi’s pet theme of subaltern rights and tells the story of a tribal girl who is gang raped, and how she is manipulated and how she manipulates. Hussain plays a photographer who travels to Purulia in rural Bengal and finds the story and much more. The film was shot digitally and was premiered at the Rome International Film Festival in 2010 to much acclaim.

What happened after that? No clue.

This is how The Hollywood Reporter reviews the film: ... Shot on digital, the images are sometimes clean, sometimes crude, but the uneven look of the Italian-Indian co-production shouldn’t hurt its art-house life in the West, where festival play is a given after the thundering audience reaction in Rome. Yet while the cast comprises all Indian, U.K. and U.S. actors of Indian descent, it remains to be seen whether this independent exposé of a very real problem can find an off-Bollywood niche... Shot on digital, the images are sometimes clean, sometimes crude, but the uneven look of the Italian-Indian co-production shouldn’t hurt its art-house life in the West, where festival play is a given after the thundering audience reaction in Rome. Yet while the cast comprises all Indian, U.K. and U.S. actors of Indian descent, it remains to be seen whether this independent exposé of a very real problem can find an off-Bollywood niche... In the film, seasoned photo-journalist Upin (Adil Hussain) is sent to Purulia, West Bengal, to report on the violence against the tribal women in the impoverished region. There he meets Gangor (Priyanka Bose). ... Upin’s interest in the beautiful young woman is ambivalent from the start, though definitely not just professional. For her part, Gangor is not above manipulating or stealing to get what she wants. She makes Upin pay to photograph her as she breast-feeds her child, though neither is aware of the consequences this will have when he uses one of the pictures for his front-page article.
More here.

More on the film and direcor Italo Spinelli here.

Italian director Italo Spinelli speaks with Utpal Borpujari on how he chose Mahasweta Devi’s story “Choli Ke Peeche” for his debut feature Gangor. In Dear Cinema.

Mahasweta Devi reads an extract from ‘Behind the Bodice’, a short story from ‘Breast Stories’ published by Seagull Books, in Youtube here.

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