Released on RU-vid on 21 March 2023 to celebrate the life and memories of film scholar Venkatesh Chakravarthy and his contributions to the city of Madras/Chennai.
A Note by Venkatesh Chakravarthy -
Initially, this film started on a personal note propelled by the desire to document my lived exeperience of the city of Chennai. Later after shooting a bit of the Besant Nagar episode, we happened to get sufficient funds to make an alternative dissemination project for IDPAD & INTACH as M.S.S. Pandian (Social Scientist) and A. Srivatsan (Architect) wished to document their research on the city along with mine.
The main thread then became how with globalization the city began to be envisioned as an ideal destination for the international business traveller as against the earlier envisioning of it as an ideal destination for the international tourist. Caught as it was in the process of unprecedented change and development we wished to document the objectives of this move and the processes that marginalized the North Chennai while privileging South Chennai. Hence the title, Chennai - The Split City.
At the same time parallel to this story, we wished to document the contestations over different spaces of the city when diverse cultural practices happen to converge on those spaces from year to year.
Fortunately, such a framework provided an opporutnity to include the footage I had shot in 1994 on the Kothwalchavadi-Koyambedu Perishable Goods Market controversy.
Unfortunately though, when the film was reaching its final stages, our hard disks crashed and therefore the film could not be properly colour corrected or the subtitles neatly formatted.
Duration: 1 hour & 10 mins
Scripted & Directed by: Venkatesh Chakravarthy
Cinematography - Sashikanth Ananthachari
Sound - R. Elangovan
Research - M.S.S. Pandian, A. Srivatsan & Venkatesh Chakravarthy
20 мар 2023
