BILAL


INDIA / 2008 / Bengali, Hindi / Color / Video / 88 min

Director, Photography, Editing, Sound, Producer: Sourav Sarangi
Production Company: Son et Lumiere
Co-production Company: Millennium Film
www.bilal.in

Amid the clamor of Kolkata city, a three-year-old boy named Bilal lives in a small room with his younger brother and their blind parents. His rambunctious presence fills the home and the streets, and threatens to overflow the screen. Communicating with his parents through touch and verbal cues, Bilal is nurtured by his neighbors in the community. With a touch of nostalgia, the film follows the sightline of a child, where what is humdrum to adults is a vast universe to a boy. He becomes his parents' eyes and the eyes of the camera as he leads us into "Bilal's world," humming with the bustle of the slums.


[Director's Statement]


I met Bilal in a hospital bed through my wife when he was just eight months old; he had fallen and had a severe brain injury.
I stood in silence and looked at the boy struggling for life, as his blind mother held him tight. Bilal looked at me for a very long time . . . and finally smiled. He touched his mother gently and that's how she knew that I was there! I felt the magic of the touch and saw the eyes, those beautiful eyes of Bilal . . . ushering in love and hope in moments when darkness rules . . .
This film is a rough assembly of my moments with Bilal.

Sourav Sarangi


Born in 1964, Sarangi first studied geology but later entered the Film and Television Institute of India, a renowned film school, to study film editing. Currently he is involved in international co-productions as an independent producer and director. His documentaries and fiction films have won awards and accolades worldwide. He has also worked extensively at private television channels in India as a programming director. Generally he spends a long time observing and interacting with his characters to bring out their inner reality in a cinematic way that is minimalist and simple.
Interview -> http://www.yidff.jp/interviews/2009/09i050-e.html

== Film Festivals ==


IDFA, Amsterdam, 2008 (World Premiere)
Visions du Reel, Nyon, Switzerland, 2009
DOK.FEST, Munich International Documentary Film Festival, Munich, 2009
Cape Winelands Film Festival, South Africa,2009
Canada International Film Festival, 2009 (Finalist)
World Filmfest Tartu, Estonia 2009
We Care Film Festival, New Delhi, India, 2009
Gdansk Doc Film Festival, Poland, 2009
SIGNS 2009 (Competition), Kerala, India
Las Vegas International Film Festival, 2009
Film Festivalen Vera, 2009, Finland
Documantarist, Istanbul 2009
Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival, Doha 2009
OXDOX, International Documentary Film Festival, England, 2009
ETHNOCINECA, Austria, 2009
7mo Festival Internacional del Cine Pobre de Humberto Solas (Competition), Cuba, 2009
EDOC, Ecuador, 2009
TALKING PICTURES FESTIVAL, USA 2009
27 festival internacional cinematografico del Uruguay, 2009
Mexico International Film Festival, 2009
49th Krakow Film Festival, (competition) 2009, Krakow, Poland
International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, 2009, India
Philadelphia Documentary & Fiction Festival, 2009
World Film festival of Bangkok, 2009
Auburn International Film Festival for Children & Young Adults, Sydney, 2009
Zanzibar International Film Festival, Tanzania, 2009
Slow Films, Hungary, 2009
Bollywood & Beyond, Stuttgart, Germany, 2009
Pusan International Film Festival, South Korea, 2009
Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, Japan, 2009
Sao Paolo InternationalFilm Festival, Brazil, 2009
DOCBOAT, Poland, 2009
DOCUPERU, Peru, 2009
Valdivia International Film Festival, Chile, 2009
El Oojo Cojo, Madrid, Spain, 2009
Taiwan International Ethnographic Film Festival, Taiwan, 2009
Vancouver International Film Festival, 2009
Docudays, Beirut, 2009
GZ DOC, China, 2009
Lyon Asian Film Festival, France, 2009
Global Cinema Festival, India, 2009
Abilityfest, Chennai, India, 2009
Jakarta International. Film Festival, Indonesia, 2009
Atlantidoc, Uruguay, 2009
IFFI, India, 2009
The International Film Festival of Peace & Human Rights, Spain, 2009
Picture This... Canada's First Disability Film Festival, 2010
Festival International Jean Rouch, Paris, France, 2010
ZagrebDox, Croatia, 2010
11th International Short & Independent Film Festival, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2010
Bring Your Own Film Festival, Puri, India, 2010

== Special Screenings ==


The Museum of Modern Art, New York, An exhibition of contemporary films from India in 2009
OVNI Archives, Spain, 2009
Prasad Academy, India, 2009



Camera, sound, editing, direction: Sourav Sarangi
Associate director & cameraman: Somdev Chatterjee
Additional camera & sound: Tapas Ganguly
Assistance in editing: Abhro, Suriti, Wasim
Technical support: Mrinal Kanti Deb, Ranadeb, Pabitra, Sayak
Translation: Sohini
Re-recording: Pankaj Seal, Ayan
Studio: SKD
In association with YLE / The Finnish Broadcasting Company, YLE TV2 Documentaries
Co-production companies: Millenium Film (Finland), Son et Lumiere (India)
Sincere thanks to: Iikka Vehkalahti, Nilotpal Majumdar, Debasish Guha, Ulla Simonen
Sincere thanks to: Bilal, Hamza, Shamim, Jharna, Bequm Nasim Bahar, Tahsin, Tajmin, Shanu, Shahbaj, Sadab, Sultan, Saukat Ali Khan, Farhan and other members of Late Hazi Abdul Momin’s
Sincere thanks to: Residents of Taltola Lane, DOCEDGE team, students of SRFTI, Anashua Majumdar, Fleur Knopperts, Barbro Johanson, Sumita Samanta
Sincere thanks to: Sumit Ghosh, Kesang Tseten, Joshy Joseph, Prabuddha Bhattacharjee, Somnath Mukherjee, Kalpana, Mangala
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