Amazonia

A film by Nandini Sikand

US | 2001 | 8 minutes | Color/BW | DVD | Order No. 03774

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SYNOPSIS

In this highly personal and visually evocative testimonial, critically acclaimed South Asian filmmaker Nandini Sikand poignantly presents her sister’s triumphal recovery from the emotional and physical scars of breast cancer. Lyrically incorporating poetry, experimental video and Super-8 montage, this moving piece looks at the myth of Amazonian women - warriors who were said to have cut off their right breast to become better archers - and compares their legendary battles to the war being waged against breast cancer. As Sikand’s sister reads passages describing her fight with the disease, the geography of her body is explored and compared to the scarred landscape of the urban environment. Traversing the pulsating and dizzying streets, the city and body become one to highlight women’s lives as triumphant urban warriors. Moving and inspiring, this short experimental film is a tribute to all women who have struggled with breast cancer.

PRESS

“… a visually stunning video, shuttling between chillingly sharp digital photography and warm, poignant, almost pointalist images... Evocative of both individual memory and the history of gendered bodies, it claims, in its short length, both the Lyric and the Manifesto, as it engages questions of breast cancer.”

Joseph Boles Northern Arizona University

“…provides a new way to imagine the lives of those in pain with ongoing serious illnesses. It offers a textured imagery of crowds and cities and struggle, of fighting and nobility it’s not about being a victim. Illness brings pain and loss, but it is also full of life.”

Julia Lesage English Dept, University of Oregon

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

Belo Horizonte International Short Film Festival
Cinema Paradise Film Festival
New York Asian American International Film Festival
Los Angeles Artwallah Festival
Immaginaria Film Festival, Experimental Competition Award
Women of Color Film Festival, CA
Bilbao International Documentary and Short Film Festival

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Nandini Sikand

Nandini is Assistant Professor of an interdisciplinary film and media studies program at Lafayette College, a liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. Sikand’s documentary and experimental films have screened and won awards at over 100 domestic and international film festivals. Her work has aired on PBS and has been awarded grants from The Jerome Foundation, the Center for Asian American Media, and she is two-time awardee of New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). Her films include: The Bhangra Wrap (1995), Don't Fence Me In (1998), Amazonia (2001), In Whose Name? (2004), Soma Girls (2009), and Cranes of Hope (2011). She also produced the documentary Mahasweta Devi: Witness, Advocate, Writer (2001). In television, she has worked as a producer and director on projects for Channel Four: UK, Ovation: the Arts Network, HBO, Oxygen, and The History Channel. She served on the board of directors of Women Make Movies, a non-profit feminist media distribution organization from 1997-2006. She was on the Fulbright IIE National Selection committee for film and video for 2008-2011.

Nandini choreographs and performs regularly with her neo-classical Odissi dance company, Sakshi Productions. Her dance work has been funded by LMCC (Lower Manhattan Cultural Council), the Asian American Arts Alliance and Joyce Soho and combines the use of film imagery, live music and elements unique to Indian theatre and performance. She is also the Associate Director/Choreographer of Harmattan Theater a performance group committed to an environmentally and socially-engaged theater.

She was recently awarded an American Association of University Women (AAUW) postdoctoral fellowship towards her book project, Bodies, Bells and Borders: Choreographing a New Odissi Tradition. (8/14)

Subject Areas

Body Image Breast Cancer Experimental Film Health South Asia/India Video Art

MATERIALS

Press Kit

Don't Fence Me In

Against the broader backdrop of modern India's political and social history, this lyrical documentary tells the story of the life of Krishna Sikand, the filmmaker's mother, from childhood to maturity. A rich mosaic of memory and impressions, DON'T FENCE ME IN captures the fragmented way in which we journey back through time. Evoking Krishna's earliest years in pre-independence Bombay as the daughter of a well-to-do Bengali family, the film also traces her post-colonial experiences--from marriage to a Punjabi army officer in the face of fierce family opposition, through the raising of two daughters and successful careers as an academic, small business entrepreneur, media consultant, journalist, and poet. Black-and-white photos of Krishna as a child and young woman are juxtaposed with clips from home movies shot by the filmmaker's father nearly thirty years ago, and recent location footage. Krishna's personal narrative is highlighted by her wonderful letters to her daughter and the poems that serve as milestones in her life.

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The Cancer Journals Revisited

A chorus of voices recite Black feminist poet Audre Lorde’s 1980 memoir of her cancer experience, and reflect upon its personal and political impact in the present moment.

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My Left Breast

“Every once in a while someone comes up with a film that sends us a clear signal that it's time to re-evaluate our lives. The film MY LEFT BREAST is not just for women living with breast cancer--it's for everyone.” – Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation. Incorporating a unique blend of wit, wisdom and resilience, filmmaker Gerry Rogers bravely recounts her story of breast cancer survival to share with the world that life, indeed, can continue with full force and vigor. Shortly after being diagnosed at age 42, Rogers began to document her ordeal on camera in an attempt to confront her own questions and fears about breast cancer. Rather than present a somber and morose meditation on this difficult experience, she decides to invoke humor to frankly reflect on the meaning of this disease on her life, as well as on the lives of her friends and family. The result is a one-of-kind approach to positively coping with a potentially fatal disease. Rather than merely chronicling how one copes with an infirmity, MY LEFT BREAST serves as a model for overcoming every challenge and obstacle in life with clarity and honesty. In the same vein as the most highly regarded films on health, such as COMPLAINTS OF A DUTIFUL DAUGHTER, this powerful film intimately embraces the emotional challenges of disease, demonstrates acceptance and, above all, affirms life.

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Rachel's Daughters

From the makers of the Oscar-winning IN THE SHADOWS OF THE STARS, this fascinating documentary follows a group of women - all breast cancer activists who are fighting or have survived the disease - who are on a personal mission to unearth the causes of breast cancer. The result is RACHEL'S DAUGHTERS, an engaging detective story and detailed analysis of the science and politics of this epidemic. Seeing themselves as spiritual heirs of author Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book SILENT SPRING warned of the dangers of DDT exposure, they focus on issues including chemical contamination, radiation, and electromagnetic exposure to find breast cancer's causes. Addressing environmental racism, inequalities in research funding, and disparities in cancer rates for women of color, they track the effects of social biases on cancer incidence and health care delivery. Incorporating interviews with prominent scientists, documentary footage from high cancer rate areas, and the investigating womens' personal battles to stay healthy, RACHEL'S DAUGHTERS offers a scientifically rigorous and intensely affecting view of this growing epidemic. An unprecedented warning of the dangers of industrialization; it is an inspiring rallying cry for those working to change current views about women's health.

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Cancer in Two Voices

“I’m the first among our friends to have cancer... Many will see their future in the way I handle mine,” Barbara Rosenblum wrote after learning she had advanced breast cancer. For three years Barbara had yet to live, she and her partner, Sandra Butler, documented their lives with courage and frankness. This stunning film provides a unique view into the intimacy of a relationship in a time of crisis. The two women talk about their identity as Jewish women and as lesbians, and they speak openly about the difficult issues each is facing: anger, guilt, feelings about their bodies and changing sexuality, about death and loss. Never once losing either its balance or its fierce emotional integrity, CANCER IN TWO VOICES provides a practical example of dealing with death with sensitivity and a deep commitment to living.

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Primas

Two teenage cousins in Argentina come of age together, overcoming the heinous acts of violence that interrupted their childhoods.

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OUR CATALOG

Amazonia

SYNOPSIS

PRESS

SCREENING HIGHLIGHTS AND AWARDS

ABOUT FILMMAKER(S)

Subject Areas

YOU MIGHT ALSO BE INTERESTED IN

Don't Fence Me In

The Cancer Journals Revisited

My Left Breast

Rachel's Daughters

Cancer in Two Voices

Primas