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Director: Sanjay Kak
Producer: Sanjay Kak
120 mins
India
“Let us declare that the state of war does exist and shall exist so long as the Indian toiling masses and the natural resources are being exploited by a handful of parasites” - Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh, in his 1931 letter to the Governor of Punjab, asking to be shot as a combatant rather than hanged as a criminal.
In Red Ant Dream, Sanjay Kak follows the trajectory of the revolutionary dream in India’s turbulent present: to the Naxalite-Maoist insurgency in Bastar, in the troubled heart of central India; Adivasi-led anti-mining protests in the mineral-rich hills of Odisha; and to rural Punjab, where the iconic figures of Bhagat Singh and the martyred poet, Pash, continue to inspire farmers.
Red Ant Dream is the third in a cycle of films in which Kak interrogates the workings of Indian democracy, following on from Jashn-e-Azadi (2007) about the idea of freedom for Kashmir, and Words on Water (2002) on the people's movement against dams in the Narmada valley, which was awarded the Best Long Film prize at the International Festival Film & Video in Brazil.
Red Ant Dream is available to view online from 14 December 2020 - 3 January 2021
Further Materials:
Sanjay Kak discusses his film with Chris Moffat, author of a biography of Bhagat Singh, and DC volunteer Pragya Dhital in this week’s DC podcast. https://deptfordcinema.org/podcast-episodes/ep14?fbclid=IwAR3X3T9AVZBqz0HQCwvR7gwp8ruVKMgujH5ASHAK_0cjYv8-MFU3u9EIHwY
Shuddhabrata Sengupta’s article on Red Ant Dream is available on Deptford Cinema’s Online Journal:
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER:
Sanjay Kak is a director and writer whose recent work reflects his interests in ecology, alternatives and resistance politics. His films 'Jashn-e-Azadi' (How we celebrate freedom) about the struggle for Azadi-freedom-in Kashmir, and 'Words on Water' about the struggle against large dams in the Narmada valley in central India, have been widely screened both in India and abroad. 'Words on Water' (2003) won Best Long Film prize at the International Festival of Environmental Film & Video, Brazil. 'In the forest hangs a bridge' (1999) received the "Golden Lotus" for Best Documentary Film at the 1999 National Film Awards in India and the "Asian Gaze" Award at the Pusan Short Film Festival, Korea. He is the editor of the anthology Until My Freedom Has Come—The New Intifada in Kashmir (Penguin India 2011). He is based in New Delhi.