Sarah Singh tells the story of Partition

Even as scholars and experts are debating how the proposed Partition museum should pan out, Patiala-born and New York based filmmaker Sarah Singh and Lahore’s multimedia artist Zoya Siddiqui will present their works together at an event in New York on Friday. Each will share recent work that engages interestingly with different notions of documentation and expanded cinema. Sarah sees the event as an opportunity for dialogue between the future generation that has inherited the historical and political legacy of Partition.

Singh will discuss her new film, ‘A Million Rivers‘. A black-and-white surrealist film exploring the Partition of the Indian subcontinent, it stars veteran Indian Om Puri and Lillete Dubey.

Sing is a recipient of numerous grants including National Endowment for Humanities, Puffin Foundation, Romita Shetty and Nasser Ahmad Foundation, and the Chenven Foundation and spends her time between New York and South Asia.

After her critically acclaimed film on Pakistan and India ‘The Sky Below‘, she is completing ‘A Million Rivers‘, also based on Partition. “My new film deals with boundaries and borders of the northwest in an oblique way—not directly like the documentary. It is taking the conversation a step further, into the territory of the unknown.”  – said Singh

“‘A Million Rivers’ explores Bertolt Brecht’s ‘alienation effect’ and the notion of expanded cinema through themes of fragmentation identity, loss, fantasy, and secrecy,” says Sarah. The film was shot in Kashmir, Punjab, Bombay, Kerala, Delhi, and Lahore. While principle filming was complete by mid-2014, it will be released in a few months.

This event is a collaboration between The South Asian Women’s Creative Collective (SAWCC) and Triangle Arts Association, with support from the Asian Cultural Council. After the two share their new proejcts, a discussion will follow about documentation as process and relationships between artist, subject and viewer in relation to film-making and photography.