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DECAYING MODERNITIES
2014, Chandigarh, India, With Metaxia Markaki
Chandigarh the ville de Beton Brt celebrated its 50 years of completion recently. This photo series captures the city in perpetual decay and the aesthetic of decay. The hybidisation that the inhabitants are bringing to this city and how a pirate modernity is taking over the city.
NOT
JUST
ROADS
असीम सड़कें
لا محدود سڑکیں
NOT JUST ROADS is an ethnographic documentary film that narrates the story of a massive urban transformation underway in India.
Highways are being constructed at an unprecedented rate of 23 kilometers per day under the Indian government's Bharatmala (‘Garland of Limitless Roads’) program. The program aims to open new territories for the emerging Indian middle class. Currently, the territory is inhabited by villages, working class neighbourhoods, and nomadic herders. It is criss-crossed by native trails and vital ecological commons. This film captures the story of one such highway outside Delhi, from the perspective of human and non-human actors.
TECHNICAL INFORMATION
2:39:1, 70’, DCP, Colour, India, Switzerland, Germany
DIRECTED, WRITTEN, & PRODUCED BY
Nitin Bathla and Klearjos Eduardo Papanicolaou
WITH SUPPORT FROM
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, India Office
Andromeda Film AG
ETH Zürich
FILM STILLS
CINEMATOGRAPHY AND SOUND RECORDING
Nitin Bathla
EDITING
Klearjos Eduardo Papanicolaou
MUSIC, SOUND DESIGN AND MIXING
Ludwig Berger
POST-PRODUCTION
Patrick Lindenmaier, Davide Legittimo,
Andromeda Film AG
GRAPHIC AND TITLE DESIGN
Claudia Sinatra & Metaxia Markaki
TEAM
NITIN BATHLA is an architect, artist, and educator currently pursuing Doctoral Studies at ETH Zurich. His work focuses on labour migration, land ecology, and housing in the extended urban region of Delhi. Aside from academic writing, he work on films, community art projects, and social design projects. www.nitinbathla.com
KLEARJOS EDUARDO PAPANICOLAOU is a Greek/Mexican filmmaker interested in ethnography as a filmmaking methodology. His films and collaborations include 'The Seven Sisters Indoor Market' (2016), 'The Disappearance of Robin Hood' (2018), and 'Not Just Roads' (2020). He is currently based in Zürich, where he teaches ethnographic filmmaking at the urban scale at the ETHZ.
LUDWIG BERGER is a sound artist and electroacoustic composer. Gravitating around the practice of field recording, his sonic pieces and installations explore more-than-human worlds. He composes music and sound for film, theatre and radio. As research assistant at the Institute for Landscape Architecture at ETH Zurich, he studies the sonic dimension of landscapes.
CLAUDIA SINATRA is an architect, urban designer and researcher with degrees from the University of Ferrara (MArch hons) and the London School of Economics and Political Science (MSc City Design and Social Science). Currently based in Zürich, her work lies at the intersection of urban design, urban planning, and graphic design. She is a licensed architect in Italy as well as a member of the Academy of Urbanism - Young Urbanists Network and Lares - Verein für gender- und alltagsgerechtes Planen und Bauen.
METAXIA MARKAKI is an architect, researcher and educator. After completing her studies at NTUA Athens, ENSAPLV Paris and ETH Zurich, she developed her independent practice through projects, teaching and writing. She is currently a tutor and PhD candidate at the ETH Landscape and Urban Studies Institute investigating peripheral landscapes of the Greek countryside.
SCREENINGS
Architecture Film Festival London 2021, Shortlisted for the international film competition (World Premier), United Kingdom
DocAviv International Documentary Festival 2021, Shortlisted for Beyond the Screen competition, Israel
Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam 2021, Netherlands
Copenhagen Architecture Festival 2021, Denmark
All living things Environmental Film Festival 2021, India
Dharamshala International Film Festival 2021, India
EATSA Film Festival 2021, Portugal
Regard Bleu Ethnographic Film Festival 2022
Indian Documentary Film Festival Of Bhubaneswar 2022
International Symposium on Film, Architecture, and Urban Studies 2022
Syracuse Architecture University - November 2022
Grupo CASA, Institute of Social and Political Studies, State University of Rio de Janeiro - November 2022
Georg-Simmel-Zentrum, Humboldt University, Sinema Transtopia, Berlin, 2022
Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, Bangalore, 2022
A.M. Qattan Foundation, Ramallah, Palestine, 2022
Public Programme - Critical Zones exhibition, Goethe Institute, Colombo
12th Ecofalante Environmental Film Festival, Brazil, 2023
Arthshila, Ahmedabad
King's College London (KCL), London
Anthony Burgess Foundation, University of Manchester, Manchester
KTH Royal Institute of Technology: Stockholm, Sweden
Sarajevo Days of Architecture 2023
Ethnokino Film Festival 2023, Bern
January 2023 India Road Tour:
Chandigarh College of Architecture, Chandigarh
Think Matter, Goa
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai
Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute For Architecture And Environmental Studies, Mumbai
Siddhartha Hall, Max Mueller Institute, New Delhi
Ambedkar University, Delhi
Centre for Environmental Planning and Technology, Ahmedabad
AWARDS & NOMINATIONS
Recipient - Society of Architectural Historians Award for Film and Video 2022
Nominated for Beyond the Screen competition, DocAviv International Documentary Festival 2021, Israel
Nominated for International Film Competition, Architecture Film Festival London 2021
PAPERS & NEWS COVERAGE
Not Just Roads
Momen El-Husseiny, AbdouMaliq Simone, Llerena Guiu Searle, D. Asher Ghertner & Sandra Jasper
The AAG Review of Books Volume 9, 2021 - Issue 4
Reframing the contested city through ethnographic film: beyond the expository on housing and the urban,
International Journal of Housing Policy, 2020
Not Just Roads – A sensory immersion into urban transformations shaping in the peripheries of Delhi
Films that offer a space for discussion on complex environmental issues, Mongabay, 2021
CONTACT
notjustroadsfilm@gmail.com
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