The Documentary Edge festival starting in Auckland on Saturday February 27 will feature a unique film which will be of huge interest to the community.
Project Kashmir, made by director/producer Geeta V. Patel and Senain Kheshgi, will be among 56 documentaries from 25 countries to be shown at the festival.
The film is about two American filmmakers, friends from opposite sides of the divide (one is Pakistani Muslim and the other Indian Hindu), travel together to Kashmir to find out why their countries have been fighting over this piece of land for over 60 years.
Shot by Academy-Award-winning filmmaker Ross Kauffman Born into Brothels and edited by Billy McMillin Iraq in Fragments, the breathtaking beauty of Kashmir gives way to constant reminders of conflict: paramilitary troops sporting AK-47s, trucks gutted by roadside bombs and abandoned homes crumbling into the earth.
Geeta and Senain talk with villagers, journalists and human rights activists (though an informant warns them that double-speak is a way of life as well as a survival tactic).
Unsure of whom to trust and what to believe, they find themselves on opposite sides of the divide, their bonds of friendship tested in a realm where one’s identity is questioned at every turn.
Kauffman captures the stunning beauty of Kashmir while expertly interweaving deeply moving personal stories of Kashmiris with those of the two American women, who strive to reconcile their ethnic and religious heritage with the violence that haunts their homeland.
Project Kashmir reveals that for some questions, there is never just one truth.
In Auckland, it will run from February 27 to March 14 at Rialto Cinemas, Newmarket, and in Wellington, the festival runs at Angelika at Reading Cinemas, Courtenay, from March 13-28.
There are group and multiple discounts and concessionary prices. If you
have any questions, please contact us on 09 3600329.