Cinema at the Institute: Incontro in biblioteca
‘Cities of Sleep’ takes us into a heady world of insurgent sleepers’ communities as well as the sleep entrepreneurs in Delhi where just securing a safe sleeping spot often becomes a question of life and death for a large number of people.
The film trails the lives of two individuals, Shakeel and Ranjeet. Shakeel, a renegade homeless sleeper has for the last 7 years slept in a diverse range of improvised places like subways, under park benches, parking lots, abandoned cars and lately, at areas controlled by the sleep market. The film follows his attempts to secure a safe sleeping space just around the time the infamous winter rains of Delhi are due.
Ranjeet runs the ‘sleep-cinema’ community in Loha Pul in Delhi, a huge double-storey iron bridge straddling the banks of the river Yamuna. A thin strip of land under Loha Pul houses shanty cinemas where over 400 odd homeless come and sleep through the day for a nominal price. The flooding of the river Yamuna poses a threat to the people sleeping there every monsoon.
The film looks at not only the tremendous social and political pressure that sleep exerts on the homeless in the city but is also a philosophical exploration of sleep at large.
Shaunak Sen is a filmmaker, video artist and scholar based in Delhi. ‘Cities of Sleep’ is his first feature length documentary, funded by the Films Division of India. He has edited various other documentary and experimental fiction/non-fiction films including ‘Squad’s Fall Guys’ (2013), ‘Old Town’ (2013) and ‘T&Lily’ (2014).
Website: http://citiesofsleep.com/
Q&A after the screening with the film’s Director – Shaunak Sen and Associate Director – Aman Mann.
Parking will be available outisde the Cultural Centre.
Ingresso libero ma e’ necessario esibire la propria carta d’identita’