A Night of Knowing Nothing

SAVVY Contemporary are our guests at Making Space, our series exploring the significance of and threats to independent cultural spaces. Lynhan Balatbat-Helbock and Laura Kloeckner will present A NIGHT OF KNOWING NOTHING by Payal Kapadia, which won the award for Best Documentary at Cannes. The focus is on the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune: Letters found on campus from a student named L. to her lover K. tell of the Hindu-nationalist BJP’s encroachment on the film school’s left-wing liberal environment. Read aloud by L. first in Hindi and then in Bengali when no longer addressed to K., the letters are interwoven with documentary footage shot by L. herself as well as by students across the country. Dance scenes are followed by strikes and protests against the new Citizenship Act and higher tuition fees. While L. mourns a love that transcends caste boundaries, demonstrators demand personal and political self-determination. In the face of growing discrimination and violence, the film raises the question of the role of a state-funded film school in such times.(Stefanie Schulte Strathaus)