Head in the Air

Like Reshma, the protagonists of There is Something in the Air (29 minutes) can tell an unusual story. More importantly, they want to tell it, complete with elaborate gestures. In the process, they reveal when happens when a person is "possessed". The film is, largely, based on the shrine of Bade Sarkar in Badayun, famous for attracting devotees who suffer from an affliction that goes by many names — hawa (air), saya (shadow), bhoot (ghost), rooh (spirit) and djinn. The shrine becomes a stage where the "possessed" narrate their stories — from visitations by djinns to tales of women who have disappeared — and undergo severe physical actions, relentless pacing and beating themselves against walls, among others. These "rituals" branch out into larger stories that create an emotional equation between the audience and the afflicted. Among these is a story of a woman, revealed only in a black-and-white photograph, who has been missing. No one searches for her, no one talks about her. She has even been erased from the family albums. The camera, when it zeroes in on the shrine of Bade Sarkar, seems to be the only one concerned about her.

Ghufran, who has won the National Awards for Best Direction and Best Editing in the short film category, avoids a linear narrative structure as well as a cinema verite technique of filmmaking. She creates a poetic and dream-like narrative that complements the fantastical nature of those who live on the outskirts of sanity.

Mindscapes...of Love and Longing (54 minutes) is a story of love stories, laced with challenges. The protagonists are all specially abled and the film delves into their romances. From young Trisha, who is on a diet and dreams of a "handsome boyfriend" who doesn't drink, except perhaps some wine, to a married couple, both on wheelchairs, who negotiate their space and privacy issues in their marriage, the film travels a wide arc. Various facets of relationships come to the fore — of a young man who says he was almost married to a girl but his "intellect" told him that she wasn't the One. Of the feisty Sujata Goenka, who cannot walk without support, but found a sense of normalcy in the act of sex. She "never wanted to be married " but wasn't averse to live-in relationships, but then Goenka is a past master of breaking conservative norms. Another perspective comes from Sangeeta Goyal, a "normal" woman, who married a man with muscular dystrophy, a condition that is bound to deteriorate with time. "What I like best about him is that he came clean on his position, that his condition might worsen. He told me that he wanted to marry me but what did I think about it," she says, in a film layered with meanings of relationships.

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