Event Details

Documentary Film Screening    

An NCPA Presentation in collaboration with Cinema Collective

The Reality Check film series promotes and encourages documentary filmmakers in India, whose work reflects life and culture in the country today in a provocative blend of creativity and integrity.  

Bhangaar/ Obsolete 
Marathi and English Film (64 mins)

In a century-old chawl, we meet Ira and Narayan who have lived together in a 12ft x 12ft partitioned room for 53 years. Without affluence or influence, these unconventional octogenarians not only legally petition the highest authorities in the country, but actively engage the media to have their voice heard in a world that often overlooks them. Attention brings the watchful eye of the police to their door. 

Within their walls, they bide their hours in restless quietude, silences, occasionally broken with banter and wry quarrels that hark back to their arranged marriage, love, patriarchy and social taboos. Endless waiting for an official response causes time to hang heavy inside their room. 

Outside their front door, we are transported from their island of isolation to the frenetic rhythms of chawl life where seasons, festivals and events rush by. The couple’s aging bodies and minds, juxtaposed with the relentless march of progress of the city and its dwellers, tell parallel stories of transience. Within this narrative, a neighbourhood sculptor, crafting Ganesha idols, symbolises the eternal cycle of birth, life and death. Through this ethnic microcosm, universal themes of love, loss, freedom, aging, are uncovered. An unforeseen crisis brings the couple to a crossroad. 

In this interplay of life and death, is the desire for one actually the yearning for the other? 

Writer & Director: Sumira Roy
Producers: Monisha Advani (Emmay Entertainment), Apoorva Bakshi, Monisha Thyagarajan & Sumira Roy
Co-producers: Uma da Cunha & Siddhant Sarin
Cinematography: Ishani Roy
Editor: Enis Saraçi
Sound Design: Mohandas VP 

 The film screening will be followed by a discussion.   

Admission on a first-come-first-served basis. NCPA Members will get preferential seating till 6.20 pm.