Films
In addition to music scholarship and performance, Amie sees ethnographic filmmaking as an important step in her process of re-presenting the music and culture she studies, makes, and lives in a widely accessible manner. For her, ethnographic video is a terrain and tool for action research as well as an alternative text in which the scholarly and the artistic overlap.
Chandni’s Choice (2006, TRT 10:00) is a documentary short coproduced by Amie and filmmaker ms. mars (www.cenozoic.com) and directed by Amie, provides a glimpse of the life and music of Chandni Kumari and her foremothers since 1996. Chandni is a teenager in a matrilineage of musicians, who identify themselves as tawaif and live at the edge of the courtesan and red light quarter in Muzaffarpur, Bihar. Once esteemed for their refined artistry, today most women of this community live at society’s margins, or have erased their identities.
Chandni, in whose world music is a way of life, is approaching a turning point. She has just begun college; her future is an unknown. She has grown up with virtually no father figure, watching her mother and grandmother often struggle to support her family with their music. Her mother Aruna has tried to shield her from the reality of sexual exploitation. Can Chandni choose her own path?
Amie’s point-of-view documentary, Guria, Gossip, & Globalization (2004, TRT 51:00, edited by ms. mars) is a glimpse of a group of present-day courtesan musicians and dancers in North India who are working with the non-profit initiative Guria Sansthan to empower themselves and their families, make their performance traditions economically viable, and, ultimately, avoid sexual exploitation. Preproduction, production, and postproduction was partially supported by a Killam Fellowship at the University of Alberta and a grant from The Center for Asian Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. The film premiered at the 2004 Dallas South Asian Film Festival, where it received the Special Jury Award. It has screened at various universities: Columbia, MIT, Princeton, Wheaton College, Arizona State University, and University of Arizona in 2004, as well as at the Centre for Studies in Social Science in Kolkata (Calcutta) and the India Habitat Centre (New Delhi) in 2005.
Amie’s first documentary, Our Stories, Our Songs: North Indian Women’s Musical Autobiographies (2000, TRT 45:00, edited by ms. mars) is an anthology, shot in verite style, of (auto)biographical vignettes of nine women, ages ranging from 40 to 87, who had careers as tawaifs, or courtesan performers. Our Stories, Our Songs premiered on Austin Community Access Channel for International Women’s Day 2000, and has screened at several conferences, seminars, and fundraisers in the US, Canada, and India. (See review on www.sawf.org/feb02.)
Amie Maciszewski & ms. mars Filmography
- “Chandni’s Choice (ms. mars, Ed., Co-prod.): documentary about a 16-year-old girl from a lineage of courtesan musicians in India (10:00) – 2006
- Stages and Seduction: Women Entertainers in 21st-Century North India” (Ms. Mars, Ed., Co-prod., 10:00 work-in-progress) – 2005
- “Guria, Gossip, Globalization” (Ms. Mars, Ed.; 51:00) (Special Jury Award, Dallas South Asian Film Fest) – 2004
- “Our Stories, Our Songs: North Indian Women’s Musical Autobiographies” (Ms. Mars, Editor; 45:00) – 2000
Screenings (juried and/or by invitation)
- 2007:
- Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival, New York City – juried screening of “Chandni’s Choice”
- 2006:
- Kathak at the Crossroads, San Francisco, CA – screening by invitation of “Stages and Seduction” with talk as part of panel on courtesans in India
- Blowinupaspot Festival, Austin, TX – juried screening of prepublication version of “Chandni’s Choice”
- 2005:
- Cinema Asia Festival, Austin, TX – juried screening of GGG and prepublication screening of “Chandni’s Choice”
- Music and the Art of Seduction Conference, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands – screening by invitation of “Stages and Seduction” with talk as part of panel
- Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, India – GGG screening, discussion
- Kri Foundation’s Setu Series: Building Bridges in the Arts, Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India – GGG screening and panel discussion
- 2004:
- Dallas South Asian Film Festival – GGG screening (winner of Special Jury Award)
- AID/Tucson, AID/Tempe – fundraiser screenings of GGG (with sitar performance)
- East Coast Fundraising Tour for Guria – GGG screenings at Columbia and Princeton Universities (with sitar performance), MIT, Wheaton College.
- Columbia University Center for Ethnomusiciology, New York City – world premier screening of GGG.
- University of Pittsburgh Center for Asian Studies: “Remembering a Forgotten Legacy: Women Musicians in North India” – screening of “Our Stories, Our Songs” (OSOS) and GGG with discussion.
- AID/Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University – fundraiser screening of GGG, with discussion.
- St. Edward’s University, Austin, TX – screening of GGG with discussion.
- 2003:
- Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Miami, FL – prepublication screening of GGG
- Habitat World Series, India Habitat Center, New Delhi – screening of OSOS and “Guriya” (work-in-progress version of GGG) and discussion.
- 2002:
- Global Visions Film Festival, Edmonton – screening of “Guriya”.
- Saheli Asian Women’s Association, Austin – screening of OSOS and “Guriya”.
- 2000:
- International Women’s Day Documentary Festival, Austin Community Access Channel TV screening of “Sakhi & Friends” (co-produced with Sheila Cosper) and world premier of OSOS.
- South Asian Women’s Conference, UCLA/Irvine/Northridge – screening of OSOS
- UT Honors Colloquium, Austin – screening of OSOS to prospective students
Press:
“Chronicler of a Dying Tradition” – excerpt from review by Sudeshna Banerjee
“. . . Being a performer makes her understand how incomplete research is on paper. That has taken her behind the camera and to kothis of about 20 tawaifs in Muzaffarpur, Jaunpur, Delhi, Benaras and . . . But her film Guria,Gossip, and Globalization will stand testimony to what posterity may well consider the most crucial offshoot of Amelia’s association with India.”
“Umrao Jaan, the Story Untold” by Sandip Roy
Excerpt from review of “Kathak at the Crossroads” conference at Yerba Buena Center, San Francisco, Sept. 2006, by Rita Feliciano
The role of the courtesans — professional entertainers, not prostitutes — was the subject of one fascinating panel. Courtesans can be thought of, though somewhat circuitously, as predecessors of Kathak dance. Margaret Walker (Queens University in Kingston, Canada) showed illustrations of gestural language in Urdu manuscripts; Punima Shah (Duke University) read from early teaching manuals that assigned certain gestures to specific emotions. But the most touching presentations came from Carol Babiracki (Syracuse University) who talked about nacnis, professional entertainers in rural societies, who are on the verge of disappearing; and Amie Maciszewski (Ph.D. University of Texas, Austin) who presented videos on the decline of contemporary courtesans who work in red light districts. Madhuri Devi Singh, a courtesan now retired from the profession, had come to perform. Gentle, with a world weary acceptance that comes with experience, her dance was spare with an exquisite sense of detachment.
Chandni’s Choice (2006, TRT 10:00) is a documentary short coproduced by Amie and filmmaker ms. mars (www.cenozoic.com) and directed by Amie, provides a glimpse of the life and music of Chandni Kumari and her foremothers since 1996. Chandni is a teenager in a matrilineage of musicians, who identify themselves as tawaif and live at the edge of the courtesan and red light quarter in Muzaffarpur, Bihar. Once esteemed for their refined artistry, today most women of this community live at society’s margins, or have erased their identities.Amie’s point-of-view documentary, Guria, Gossip, & Globalization (2004, TRT 51:00, edited by ms. mars) is a glimpse of a group of present-day courtesan musicians and dancers in North India who are working with the non-profit initiative Guria Sansthan to empower themselves and their families, make their performance traditions economically viable, and, ultimately, avoid sexual exploitation. Preproduction, production, and postproduction was partially supported by a Killam Fellowship at the University of Alberta and a grant from The Center for Asian Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. The film premiered at the 2004 Dallas South Asian Film Festival, where it received the Special Jury Award. It has screened at various universities: Columbia, MIT, Princeton, Wheaton College, Arizona State University, and University of Arizona in 2004, as well as at the Centre for Studies in Social Science in Kolkata (Calcutta) and the India Habitat Centre (New Delhi) in 2005.Amie’s first documentary, Our Stories, Our Songs: North Indian Women’s Musical Autobiographies (2000, TRT 45:00, edited by ms. mars) is an anthology, shot in verite style, of (auto)biographical vignettes of nine women, ages ranging from 40 to 87, who had careers as tawaifs, or courtesan performers. Our Stories, Our Songs premiered on Austin Community Access Channel for International Women’s Day 2000, and has screened at several conferences, seminars, and fundraisers in the US, Canada, and India. (See review on www.sawf.org/feb02.)- Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival, New York City – juried screening of “Chandni’s Choice”
- Kathak at the Crossroads, San Francisco, CA – screening by invitation of “Stages and Seduction” with talk as part of panel on courtesans in India
- Blowinupaspot Festival, Austin, TX – juried screening of prepublication version of “Chandni’s Choice”
- Cinema Asia Festival, Austin, TX – juried screening of GGG and prepublication screening of “Chandni’s Choice”
- Music and the Art of Seduction Conference, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands – screening by invitation of “Stages and Seduction” with talk as part of panel
- Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, India – GGG screening, discussion
- Kri Foundation’s Setu Series: Building Bridges in the Arts, Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India – GGG screening and panel discussion
- Dallas South Asian Film Festival – GGG screening (winner of Special Jury Award)
- AID/Tucson, AID/Tempe – fundraiser screenings of GGG (with sitar performance)
- East Coast Fundraising Tour for Guria – GGG screenings at Columbia and Princeton Universities (with sitar performance), MIT, Wheaton College.
- Columbia University Center for Ethnomusiciology, New York City – world premier screening of GGG.
- University of Pittsburgh Center for Asian Studies: “Remembering a Forgotten Legacy: Women Musicians in North India” – screening of “Our Stories, Our Songs” (OSOS) and GGG with discussion.
- AID/Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University – fundraiser screening of GGG, with discussion.
- St. Edward’s University, Austin, TX – screening of GGG with discussion.
- Society for Ethnomusicology Annual Conference, Miami, FL – prepublication screening of GGG
- Habitat World Series, India Habitat Center, New Delhi – screening of OSOS and “Guriya” (work-in-progress version of GGG) and discussion.
- Global Visions Film Festival, Edmonton – screening of “Guriya”.
- Saheli Asian Women’s Association, Austin – screening of OSOS and “Guriya”.
- International Women’s Day Documentary Festival, Austin Community Access Channel TV screening of “Sakhi & Friends” (co-produced with Sheila Cosper) and world premier of OSOS.
- South Asian Women’s Conference, UCLA/Irvine/Northridge – screening of OSOS
- UT Honors Colloquium, Austin – screening of OSOS to prospective students