MeetFactory Film Club in cooperation with Goethe Institut Prague

(with English subtitles)

11.2,20:00

 Dinner with the President
Sabiha Sumar / Sachithanandam Sathananthan, Pákistán/ 2006/ 52 min.

What are the implications for democracy in Pakistan when secular political parties have succumbed to the Islamic agenda?  What does it mean when the army appears to be the only force able to contain the opponents of democracy, the armed Islamists?  President Musharraf agrees to explore this apparent contradiction over dinner at his official residence, the Army House.  As the discussion moves in and out of the different worlds in Pakistan a complex tapestry emerges revealing a society unique yet universal.  The filmmaker talks to diverse individuals, from labourers to intellectuals, from street vendors to religious right wing political party members and from journalists to industrialists.  What is their idea of democracy in Pakistan?  What is their idea of President Musharraf’s vision of a modern Pakistan?  Dinner With the President questions the role a military leader can play in guiding a state towards modern democracy.

In Search of Gandhi
Lalit Vachani / Indie/ 2007/ 52 min.

In the early decades of the twentieth century Mahatma Gandhi’s legacy of non-violent revolution, or Satyagraha, inspired a mass movement of millions of Indians to rise up against the British colonial state and successfully agitate for the establishment of a democratic and free India.  In 2007, the country is preparing to celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of its existence as an independent nation.  But what kind of a democracy does India have today?  What does it actually mean to live in the world’s largest democracy?  In road-movie style the film crew travel down the famous trail of Gandhi’s salt march, the remarkable mass campaign that galvanized ordinary Indians to join the non-violent struggle for democracy and freedom almost a century ago.  Stopping at the same villages and cities where Gandhi and his followers had raised their call for independence, the film documents the stories of ordinary citizens in India today.  Although inspired by a historical event, “In Search of Gandhi” is not a journey back in time.  Instead it is a search for the present and future of democracy in India.

admission: 50kč

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