68 Pages

68 Pages
Directed by Sridhar Rangayan
Produced by Humsafar Trust
Written by Sridhar Rangayan, Vivek Anand
Starring Moulli Ganguly
Joy Sengupta
Jayati Bhatia
Zafar Karachiwala
Uday Sonawane
Distributed by Solaris Pictures
Release dates
  • 9 December 2007 (2007-12-09) (International Film Festival of Kerala)
Running time
 92 minutes
Country India
Language Hindi

68 Pages is a 2007 Indian film about an HIV/AIDS counselor and five of her counselees who are from marginalized communities. The film is directed by Sridhar Rangayan and produced by Humsafar Trust in association with Solaris Pictures. It had its world premiere at the International Film Festival of Kerala and then has screened at several international film festivals. It won the Silver Remi award at WorldFest Houston International Film Festival 2008, USA.[1] The film was also screened in the Pink Ribbon Express, a National AIDS Control Organisation initiative.

The film weaves together five empathetic Mumbai-based short stories revolving around people living with AIDS from some of the marginalised sections of society like a sex worker, a transsexual bar dancer and a gay couple. The common thread is hope.

Overview

A transsexual bar dancer, a sex worker, a gay couple — characters often ignored by Bollywood — take center stage to tell their stories of pain and trauma, of happiness and hope. Coming from a country like India that is still in denial, 68 Pages exposes the shallowness of society to reveal how it stigmatizes and shuns those who have HIV or even those who just want to be what they are. This film deals with the issues of stigma and discrimination faced by people affected by HIV/AIDS from marginalized groups.

The film was produced with support from Department for International Development (DFID), UK. It was made as an advocacy effort to support the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) in National AIDS Control Programme, Phase III. In Phase III it was decided that the female sex workers, intravenous drug users, homosexuals and transgender will be considered core groups and HIV projects will start up at a rapid scale in the next five years with these groups.

In the next five years of NACP-III, this film is scheduled to screen all over the country to people who affect the lives of people with HIV and general populations in an attempt to bring a change in the attitude of the people towards people living with HIV.

The film has also been mandatory resource material for all counselor training programmes in India by NACO.

Plot

A counselor’s ethics demand that she maintain confidentiality, be objective and not get emotional. But for a sensitive young woman like Mansi it is difficult to remain unaffected. Her true feelings are reflected in 68 pages of her personal diary.

Through these pages we see the stories of Paayal, a commercial sex worker; Nishit, an intravenous drug user; Kiran, a gay man; and Umrao, a transsexual bar dancer — stories of being marginalized and discriminated before and after becoming getting HIV. These stories have the capacity to touch, heal, change lives and hopefully bring about a better understanding of their fight to live with dignity.

Cast

Festivals

Team

References

  1. 1 2 "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 February 2009. Retrieved 2013-12-03., Page 10, Line 5
  2. ↑ http://www.iffk.keralafilm.com/index.htm
  3. ↑ http://www.puneinternationalfilmfestival.com/Catalouge-PIFF2008.pdf, page 133
  4. ↑ http://montagemovieclub.org/
  5. ↑ https://www.xing.com/app/forum?op=showarticles;id=9690923;articleid=9690923
  6. ↑ http://www.bollywood-festival.de/en/the-festival/archive.html
  7. ↑ http://www.thequeerfest.com/synopsis2.html
  8. ↑ http://www.qfilmfestival.org/modules/films/movie_detail/broken_sky/
  9. ↑ http://isaff.tasveer.org/2008/event.php?id=41
  10. ↑ http://threedollarbillcinema.org/08/translations

External links

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