A Festival of Plays

Organised in collaboration with Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, four plays of Pippo Delbono, well-known Italian theatre actor and director will be streamed through Vimeo links. Presented by the Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione, Italy, each of the plays feature leading actors from theatres in Modena, Cesena, Vignola and Castelfranco Emilia.

 

The four plays will be presented over the next four weeks and can be accessed through the Vimeo link pasted below. The plays are in Italian with English subtitles

 

Orchids (Orchidee; 115 min)

Written and Directed by Pippo Delbono

 

Orchids is a collage of texts and music, musical pieces taken from Pietro Mascagni, Enzo Avitabile, Deep Purple, Miles Davis and Philip Glass, and theatrical verses taken from Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet) and from Chekhov, whose leitmotif is the passion for life. Until the poignant final of The Cherry Orchard.

 

The play is a tribute to a loved one who is no longer there, a wake for a dying mother also realized through the images (sometimes raw) of the main character’s real agony in the hospital.

 

As in all his shows, Delbono brings on stage a cast of "real" people, a cast that also includes social marginalists, such as the deaf and dumb Bobò, who lived in an asylum for forty years, and Gianluca, a boy down who masterfully interprets characters full of life, excite the spectators.

 

https://vimeo.com/408064853

In War and Peace – The Life of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, MC

(60 min; 2003; English)

Director: Jessica Gupta

Produced by UNESCO Parzor Project

 

Documentary on the life of India’s first Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw. The film travels back in time through Sam’s rich and unique life through a conversation with his grandson Jehan, making the past come alive. The film re-visits a part of history that many of today’s generation know very little about. It is a tale of heroism, bravery, honesty, wit and much more…

 

 In War and Peace: https://youtu.be/fmV0AlnVw34

 

(Collaboration: Parzor; and Jiyo Parsi)

Linguistic Diversity in South and Southeast Asia (67 min)

Keynote Address: Dr. Ganesh Devy, Chairman, People’s Linguistic Survey of India

Introduction: Professor Anvita Abbi, Seminar Coordinator; Honorary Director, Centre for Oral and Tribal Literature, Sahitya Akademi

 

Guest of Honour: Dr. D. P. Pattanayak, eminent linguist                        

Chair: Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, Chairperson, IIC-International Research Division

 

Organised by IIC-International Research Division

 

Webcast recording of the programme held on 21st November 2016
 

 

Evolution The Most Important Theory in Biology (99 min)

Speaker: Prof. D.J. Futuyma, Distinguished Professor of Ecology and Environment, State University of New York and Member of the National Academy of Sciences of USA who has written a number of scholarly books 

 

Chair: Prof. R. Geeta, Botany Department, University of Delhi

 

Despite the simplicity of its central concepts, evolution has a long history of misunderstandings and despite its lack of moral or prescriptive content, evolution has been used to justify social policies that range from the admirable to the appalling. Of all the biological disciplines, evolutionary biology has the most far-reaching philosophical implications and the most diverse applications to society. Prof. Futuyma will outline some of the major principles.

 

Webcast recording of the programme held on 15th April 2013