Jammu and Kashmir film fest: Short-film brings Kashmir’s Sufism to Pune
In a first, a five-day film festival dedicated to stories and artists from Jammu and Kashmir is being held in Pune.
The film festival, which ends Wednesday, is organised by Sarhad, a city-based organization, in association with the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) and the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Pune in Maharashtra.
‘Alamdar-E-Kashmir’, a 11-minute short film exploring the life of Sheikh Noor-ud-Noornani and Sufism in Kashmir, was screened Tuesday, as part of the festival. Directed by freelance journalist and documentary filmmaker Anil Kumar Singh along with Aneesa Khan, an independent journalist based in Kashmir, the short film challenges narratives around Kashmir, and looks at it from a renewed perspective.
“At present, all talk of Kashmir is inundated with the same three things – terrorism, the Army and internet bans. But we wanted to challenge this. We wanted to reveal to the audience that Kashmir had been the cradle of knowledge, saints and Sufism, with brilliant mystics and poets such as Sheikh Noor-ud-Noorani,” said Singh.
The film is set in the town of Charar-i-Sharief, where the shrine of the poet-saint called Sheikh Noor-ud Noorani Wali is situated. It follows a filmmaker, who had come to capture Kashmir’s picturesque beauty but gets fascinated by its rich history of Sufism. She decides to make a reflexive documentary on Sufism in Kashmir by interviewing people in Charar-i-Sharief. Through these interviews, the stories of Sheikh Noorani, who established the Rishi order in Kashmir are discovered.
Source: The Indian Express
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