Online May 2 - 4
Photo courtesy: Film Heritage Foundation
Indie Meme Special 10th Year
Retrospective Showcase
An Orphanage of Memories
India | Short
2024 | 21 mins | Kashmiri
Limited tickets available on site.
Tasveer Film Festival
Jakarta Film Week - Winner (Global Short Award)
Izmit International Short Film Festival (Finalist)
In a small village of Kashmir, Farah, the caretaker of a small piece of land has lost her husband under tragic, unexplained circumstances. Feeling overwhelmed with grief, Farah clings onto her late husband's memories. Under threat of her home being uprooted by the prospect of a new buyer,
Farah finds a new lease of life when she discovers the saplings her husband brought to their kitchen garden.
Just as she is done planting them, she discovers small rat droppings around the garden.
With this, Farah dives deep into a point of no return as she dedicates her life towards protecting the saplings at the cost of affecting her sanity.
Film Heritage Foundation used the best surviving elements for the restoration – the original camera negative and the 35 mm print preserved at the NFDC – NFAI. Unfortunately, the sound negative was not available. We digitized the sound from the 35 mm print preserved at Film Heritage Foundation. The film elements were repaired by the Film Heritage Foundation conservators and the scanning was done in Prasad Lab in Chennai We found that due to the deterioration of the print, there were vertical green lines on many parts of the film. While the scanning and digital clean-up was done at Prasad under the supervision of L’Immagine Ritrovata in Bologna, the grading, sound restoration and mastering was done at the lab in Bologna. Both Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani, the cinematographer of the film, have been involved in the restoration of the film.
Restoration Process
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Photo courtesy: Film Heritage Foundation
The screening will be preceded by a performance by Specific Thing.
Specific Thing is the project of local musician Román. Sometimes he plays by himself and sometimes he plays with his snazzy band — he loves to do both! And the music? It draws from folk, punk, pop, latin, communism, animals, friends... He likes to keep it cartoony, quick, and catchy. The band released an album in 2025 called "Now Is Actually Not A Good Time". Find more at @specificthing on Instagram.
Meet Specific Thing
About the Artist
Photo courtesy:
Film Heritage Foundation
Rayit Hashmat Qazi is an independent filmmaker from Kashmir, who is currently working in Mumbai, India. He has worked as an assistant to international as well as Indian directors on TVC's for the last 6 years. From Jim Sonzero to Rob Cohen and Harvey Brown, Rayit has been a right hand to a wide array of filmmakers while working with Band Bang Films on brands as diverse as AIRTEL, Tanishq, Britannia, Pepsi, Loreal, etc. In addition to this Rayit has worked as an assistant director on the critically acclaimed Mukti Bhawan that went on to premiere at the Venice Film Festival amongst other international film festival giants.
This experience was instrumental in helping him transition from assisting to directing ads of his own. Over the course of the last two years, Rayit has made commercials for brands like Britannia, HUL, BMC, Airtel, etc. His maiden short Do Cup Chai (Two Cups of Tea) which sees the story of two ex-lovers who meet each other to fulfill a promise over a cup of tea, was nominated in the Best Short Film category at the NYIFF (New York Indian Film Festival). It further went on to premiere at Silk Screen International Festival and the prestigious Brahmaputra Valley Film Festival in Assam.
Currently, Rayit is developing a show for Amazon as well as MX player. He has completed his graduation in Audio Visual Production/Filmmaking from Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication
Photo courtesy: Film Heritage Foundation
Trailer
Credits
Director:
Rayit Hashmat Qazi
Writer:
Rayit Hashmat Qazi
Producers:
Rayit Hashmat Qazi
Film Editor:
Rohan Kapoor
Shafia Maqbool
Yousuf Shahnaz
Restoration Effort Led By: Shivendra Singh Dungarpur, Director, Film Heritage Foundation
Restoration Credit:
Restored by Film Heritage Foundation in association with Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd.(Amul), the cinematographer Govind Nihalani and the director Shyam Benegal. Funding supported by Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd.(Amul)