Mumbai-based Harkat Studios conducts Celluloid Kaarigar, a beginner’s workshop to experimenting with 16mm celluloid film. The workshop takes selected participants through the entire process of shooting, hand-developing and projecting 16mm black-and-white film, bringing the sense of human touch to the process of filmmaking. Participants learn in a hands-on environment, documenting the festival itself. The workshop culminates with a public screening of the final film, with the artists playing projectionists for their own work.
Harkat is a boutique arts studio, film production company, artists’ analogue film lab and an alternative performance space and theatre in Mumbai. It has been running a 16mm film festival for the past six years. One of the cornerstones of the lab is ‘India on film’, an attempt to find an Indian voice in the world of ‘experimental’ and ‘avant-garde’ film. It is an intended photochemical counter-culture to the very commercial industry work which makes Harkat sustainable and possible.
After two years of virtual viewing rooms, social distancing and highly digitised living, DIFF is happy to collaborate with Harkat Studios to create a physical space that celebrates community, filmmaking and hands-on art.