Closing with Love

By Shahana Dattagupta

Yesterday was the last and final day of ISAFF. The day’s primary focus was on two topics – HIV/AIDS education and love in various forms of marriage and intimate relationships – explored through a series of short films and a presentation.

I found the shorts made on HIV/AIDS quite artistically and sensitively treated. In the past I have only seen dry documentaries on this topic, not emotive short stories. Vishal Bharadwaj’s film Blood Brothers was really interesting - it explored the different realities of two men with the same name whose blood reports were mixed up by the testing lab, and their intersection in life.

In the afternoon was a rare, unique presentation. The Asian Pacific Community Leadership Foundation’s (ACLF) 2008 Community Leadership Program class presented their project – a multi-media presentation on mixed-orientation relationships in the South Asian community. Not only should ACLF be commended for such a bold, ground-breaking project, but also those members of our local South Asian community who were courageous and open enough to share the stories of their lives and their mixed-orientation relationships. I was touched deeply, and what resonated with me the most personally was the idea of possibilities in intimate relationships. To make these relationships successful, those open to a wider range of possibilities must also demonstrate greater caring, openness, dialogue and communication, respect and responsibility towards their partners than perhaps those in normative relationships. In other words, there can be great personal growth and evolution when one opens oneself to a bigger range of possibilities. It was also great to witness the bridges of collaboration being built between Seattle’s South Asian and Asian Pacific communities, beginning with Tasveer and ACLF’s partnership on this project.

The remaining afternoon was spent watching Every Good Marriage Begins with Tears and Donkey in Lahore. The first film, made by Simon Chambers, profiled the struggles of a Bangladeshi family living in England, arranging marriages for their two daughters. Chambers, who was a close friend of the family, was able to use the lens as an intimate observer of the various issues and inner-workings of the family. It was great to see the Tasveer Youth Initiative present a short film of their own, that presented a wider view of arranged marriages with interviews from Seattle’s local Bengali community. The discussion that ensued on arranged marriages was actually quite involved. Some found the narrow lens Simon Chambers used to portray the Bangladeshi family irresponsible. Others threw light on the full spectrum of arranged marriages, and the term “facilitated” was put on the table. In Donkey in Lahore, Brian from Australia may have met Amber in Pakistan and “fallen in love,” yet the customs and formalities that followed and spanned nearly 5 years (which included immigration formalities) for their wedding were essentially those of a very traditionally organized arranged marriage. Brian (Amir after his conversion to Islam) and Amber essentially learned to love each other only after marriage, because all their meetings and interactions up to this point were always chaperoned. It illustrated to me, the very point being debated earlier in the afternoon – that love can happen in various stages of marriages, and “arrangement” and “choice” can mean different things in different situations.

The evening’s screening had two Nepali films – a short titled A Silent Monsoon and the feature film Kagbeni, which was quite the mythical thriller. It was my first Nepali feature film and I was struck by the cinematography featuring immensely beautiful landscapes.

At the end of the festival I was both happy and exhausted. It had been 5 intense days of films that raised topics that are complex, and issues that don’t have straightforward answers. I felt that I had learned and grown an incredible amount in 5 days, and yet I could see the benefit of having more time in between topics and groups of films so that people could have more opportunities to reflect and relax in between. All in all, however, I believe that ISAFF this year was a unique offering of topics and films that I may have never been exposed to if not for Tasveer’s initiative. It will be great to see how this festival evolves to new heights next year!