Spherical Video
Ode to Uśas: This time let’s get the Dawn right
In this mythopoetic fiction experience set in the time of Covid, Maya the cosmogonic principle is mired in a nightmare of patriarchal stalking from which she cannot awake. Rafael a dancer-writer invokes the powers of Earth with new born recognition, and Adishakti, the originary consciousness offers him a bijakshara, an indestructible seed syllable from which a new language and planetary imaginary can emerge. Drawing on classical Indian aesthetics and the notion of Rasa in particular, that which is experienced and savoured at leisure (not consumed) Ode to Uśas unfurls on the spherical screen as a stylized performance idiom derived from diverse classical music, dance and martial art traditions from India and beyond, steeping audiences in locational and temporal immersion.
Director:
Soudhamini began her professional career assisting Indian avant-garde film-maker Mani Kaul in his film Before My Eyes and has since then worked across platforms and genres making short fiction, feature length non-fiction and experimental installations, receiving commissions from the Government of India, the ZDF, Dept Das Kleine Fernsehspiel, Germany, the Prince Claus Fund, Netherlands and most recently the Australia Council for the Arts. Screened globally, at the Oberhausen Film Festival, the FID Marseille, Creteil International Women’s Film Festival, Cinema Du Reel, Festival du Popoli, Asia Society, New York and Leningrad International Documentary Festival to name a few, they have also had regular screenings at the Indian International Film Festivals (MIFF and IFFI). She has officiated on International Film Festival Competition Juries and Selection Committees, including most recently the Selection Committee of Melbourne International Film Festival’s XR Showcase (2022). Soudhamini has a PhD in Film and Immersive Media from Deakin University, Melbourne (2023) a Post Graduate Diploma in Direction from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, (FTII) (1986)
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