Earlier this month, Experimenter at Hindustan Road presented Siege of Darkness, an exhibition of two films by artistes and film-makers Payal Kapadia and Priya Sen. The films that were screened at the venue for over 15 days, underscored the swiftly changing dynamics of our social and political construct and question the fundamental ways in which we experience relationships and share a common space of cohabitation and camaraderie, in an increasingly unstable and intolerant time.

Payal Kapadia

Payal’s first feature film, A Night of Knowing Nothing, chronicles an Indian university student writing letters to her estranged lover while he is away. Through these letters, the Mumbai-based film-maker merges reality with fiction, dreams, memories, fantasies and anxieties and presents an amorphous narrative in 99 minutes. Kapadia’s previous projects include short films like Afternoon Clouds and And What Is The Summer Saying which premiered at the Ciné fondation and the Berlinale respectively.

Stills from No Stranger At All

Priya’s films explore forms of tenuousness and ambiguity within realist documentaries and simultaneously play with narrative modes and cinematic gestures and No Stranger At All has tried to find language for and ways across the bizarre upheavals of social and political values with the rise of fascism in India and a global pandemic. During the 40-minute film, filmed in Calcutta and majorly in Delhi, Sen presents snapshots of people, places, and protests that keep the language of hatred at bay. There is a shadowy sense of a protagonist who undreams it all; a stranger, who turns out, is no stranger at all.

Film-maker Gargi Sen in conversation with Priya Sen at Experimenter, Hindustan Road

Post her film screening on August 5, film-maker Gargi Sen was in conversation with Priya and they threw light on the various aspects of No Stranger At All. From finding the voice of resistance to the hidden secrets and more, the discussion engaged the audience who appreciated the vision and craft of Priya.