A 1980 Documentary on Durga Puja by National Film Development Corporation (NFDC).
Social & External
The people behind it
Documentary is a form of digital media which speaks about the livelihood of people living in a city and their revelations about it. Durga Puja as a festival is mostly known for being celebrated by Bengali's (a community from eastern India). Probashe Agomon as translated directly "Arrival Abroad" is what Bengalis wait for throughout the year for a Glimpse of Maa Durga. This is not just a religious ceremony it is a cultural festival.
A modest tradition of making clay images existed in Bengal in pre-British times. These craftsmen originally “Potters” by caste became the core settlers of Kumartuli, which means “Potters Quarter”. “Documentation of Clay Image Makers of Kumartuli”s an attempt to understand their plight and Kumartuli’s contribution to one of the biggest festivals in the world.
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The film is a portrait of Yorgos Tzinoudis, a painter of pop art. We begin at his car and go on to the covers of Soul magazine, his refrigerator, his paintings... A restless spirit, he tries to capture in his paintings human alienation and oppression, the stress of the city which none of us are immune to. His paintings are “weird”; skulls and cockroaches, but also a playing card are his favourite themes, through which he satirizes reality in an allusive way. The film follows him at work, at the Wine Museum at the Gerovassiliou vineyard, at his house/studio, or as he wanders around the city. His friends and colleagues talk about him, until finally we let him take off again, far from Thessaloniki, on new journeys of the mind and soul.
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