Pearl Academy joins hands with ‘Engendered’ as its education partner
nique in their approach, mediums, methods, expressions, and outcomes, what unites education and art is the purpose- betterment of the human species. Pearl Academy, a creative education institution with 28 years of legacy, has partnered with Engendered, a transnational arts and human rights organization as the education partner of I-View World Film Festival 2020. The academy has also pledged to support human equality. Not just a showcase and celebration of compelling films around gender, identity, marginalities, sexuality, climate change, the film festival, organized from Dec 10-20, became an apt platform to initiate fresh conversations, exchange new ideas and deliberate on subjects of pertinence.
UI-View, in partnership with Pearl Academy, organized a physical round table discussion on ‘Independent Cinema and Politics of Representation’ with changemakers from the world of cinema- Deepa Mehta (Director, Funny Boy); Onir (Director, My Brother Nikhil); Swara Bhaskar (Actor, Sheer Qorma); Faraz Arif Ansari (Director, Sheer Qorma); Vivek Gomber (Actor, Sir) and Shiladitya Bora (Founder, Platoon One Films). They were joined by Sharad Mehra, President, Creative Arts Education Society and Nandita Abraham, President, Pearl Academy. The discussion was moderated by Myna Mukherjee, Founder, Engendered & Director, I-View Film Festival and Viveck Vaswani, Dean, School of Contemporary Media, Pearl Academy.
To introduce the discussion, Sharad Mehra said, “The world of art has been a leader in dealing with difficult, sensitive issues. It is the responsibility of the artists to initiate conversations about topics that are considered uncomfortable but need to be understood, accepted and addressed”. During the discussion, Swara Bhaskar shared that the stories and who they represent matters to her immensely. ‘If what I want to see as an audience is not offered to me as an actor then I will perhaps write those stories or support them to the best of my abilities’, she remarked. Encouraging the students to follow their creative instincts and dreams, Deepa Mehta offered advice to them and said, “Don’t be scared of embracing how fearful you are because fear makes you find different paths”.