Documentaries are often described as reality films. But reality as we know is slippery, forever near and forever far. And probably nothing proves this more than the troubled area of representation of men and masculinities in documentaries. Why is it that we look at men in documentaries but we don’t really see them as ‘men’? Or let’s put it in another way, why is it easy to understand what we mean when we say ‘films on women’ and get quizzical looks if we were to say ‘films on men’. Boys and men rarely carry the burden of gender when portrayed as workers, teachers, peasants, activists, students in films, while women are almost always marked out by their gender. When we look at men, we are always invited to read between the lines, to interpret, to examine the fractures but there seems to be a hesitation to gender men in similar ways as what has happened with the representation of women. This invisibility of masculinities can be understood as an absence of research and knowledge on what constitutes gender practices of men. We know only too well the hegemonic masculinity that constantly crosses our path and dominates our image of the masculine but what about various other forms of masculinities that lie submerged and silent. The obscuring of masculinities can also be interpreted as the dividend men gain from the patriarchal pyramid for being men.

This festival of documentaries attempts to intervene in this space of presence and absence to induce a gaze that unravels the many realities of men and masculinities through filmic journeys inside homes, work sites, youthful yearnings, race, sexuality and labour. The films take us inside the world of boys and men to reveal the complexity and contradictions within the world of masculinities. They invite us to look at masculinities as an intricate system of distribution of privileges and the insecurities and instability of a world that is constantly on the verge of being undone.

And finally to queer the pitch we also have a documentary on a woman truck driver, the film emphasising that masculinities is at best a provisional term that can be deployed to understand men within the domain of gender but it cannot be fixed in all circumstances to only the male body.

This festival of documentaries is being organised as part of a series of events to generate a discussion on masculinities and build partnerships with boys and men to prevent gender based violence.

Rahul Roy / Juhi Jain / Uma Tanuku

Aakar

www.southasianmasculinities.org

beyond the border

i am a man

in the pit

listen to the wind

majma

manjuben truck driver

my friend su

our boys

she creates

simple past

that’s what my dad used to say!

when four friends meet

who can speak of men?

yeh hui na mardon wali baat