Jai Bhim Comrade
NEW: Regarding Buddhism • 2h 48m
Directed by Anand Patwardhan • Documentary • 2012 • 168 minutes
For thousands of years India’s Dalits were abhorred as “untouchables,” denied education and treated as bonded labour. By 1923 Bhimrao Ambedkar broke the taboo, won doctorates abroad and fought for the emancipation of his people. He drafted India’s Constitution, led his followers to discard Hinduism for Buddhism. His legend still spreads through poetry and song. In 1997 a statue of Dr. Ambedkar in a Dalit colony in Mumbai was desecrated with footwear. As angry residents gathered, police opened fire killing 10. Vilas Ghogre, a leftist poet, hung himself in protest. Jai Bhim Comrade shot over 14 years, follows the poetry and music of people like Vilas and marks a subaltern tradition of reason that, from the days of the Buddha, has fought superstition and religious bigotry.
Up Next in NEW: Regarding Buddhism
-
A New Old Play
Directed by QIU Jiongjiong • Drama • With Tao Gu, Yi Sicheng • 2022 • 180 minutes
Jiongjiong Qiu’s visually magnificent new film is a unique hybrid of fiction, historical reminiscence, and experimental theatre. Its overview of China from the 1930s to the 1980s is filtered through Qiu Yu, a Sichu...
-
Paths of the Soul
Directed by Zhang Yang • Drama • With Tsring Chodron, Tsewang Dolkar, Jiangcuo Seba • 2016 • 117 minutes
An astonishing journey of redemption, faith, and devotion. Internationally acclaimed filmmaker Zhang Yang ( Shower, Getting Home ) blurs the border between documentary and fiction to follow a...
-
The Professor
Directed by Barry Strugatz • Documentary • 2016 • 72 minutes
The Professor is a documentary about Tai Chi and one of its great masters, Cheng Man-Ching, a man who brought Tai Chi and Chinese culture to the West during the swinging, turbulent 60s. Featuring a rich array of vintage archival footag...
