26th Social Justice Film Festival, Thrissur

 26th Social Justice Film Festival 2025, Thrissur

Jointly organised by Centre for Media Studies, St Thomas College, MARUPAKKAM & International Film Festival of Thrissur (Kerala)

Venues: St Thomas College, Thrissur

Curated by Amudhan RP

10 am Inauguration 

10.30 am 

Dindigul Diaries 

Dir: Annette Danto; 01:07:41 min; Documentary; United States

Synopsis: Shot over a twenty-three year period, Dindigul Diaries is a feature length documentary telling the stories of four women living in the Dindigul region of Southern India. Dindigul Diaries is about the dignity of labor and the resilience of working women. It addresses human rights topics of girls education, dowry, and cultural restrictions and expectations of females around the world.

Beyond Ratings 

Dir: Aprajita Gupta; 37:30 min; Documentary; India 

Synopsis: Three women share their experience of navigating the app-world in the metro city. The sharings reveal gendered battles as platform workers and the tiresome reality of gig-workers' identities against the absent bosses, masked behind their apps. Filmed in the streets of New Delhi, the protagonists share about their door-to-door gigs, the surveillance at their workplaces and the absence of accountability in the urban landscape. 

Hues & Blues 

Dir: Vinayakram C; 45:24 min; Documentary; India 

Synopsis: Prasanna, Prasenjit, Ayushi and Vivek are individuals living separate lives and having distinct careers in different cities of the world. Being queer is a common thread they have and united by chance, they come together to throw a camping festival for the queer community in India. The festival is named "URU" meaning "VILLAGE" in the southern languages of India. 

1 pm : Lunch break

2 pm 

Formless Form 

Dir: Deba Ranjan; 60:00 min; Documentary; India 

Synopsis: Worshipping idols and scriptures, fasting, pilgrimaging, following discipleship, believing in sin and redemption have been the religious tradition of Indian subcontinent. This upholds the caste system and social hierarchy in the society. This film is about the journey of a religious faith - propagated by Mahima Swamy and Bhimabhoi in eighteenth century of Odisha, eastern part of India opposing the caste system, idol worship and pilgrimage. The Mahima Dharma, as it is largely known, then spread as mode of resistance in those feudatory states of Odisha where exploitation by the Britishers and feudal lords were more. During the life-time of Bhimabhoi the Jagannath Temple at Puri was also attacked. Where this faith stands now? Do its followers still oppose the caste system, or, has it been co-opted by the same Hindu religion against which once it had raised its voice? 

Bonded

Dir: Shobhit Jain; 56:19; India; Documentary

The film takes an ethnographic look into the life of a bonded labourer in a remote tribal village in central India.

Vattam - The Holy Sin 

Dir : Vivek K.A.; 28.20 min; India; Documentary 

Cows are revered as sacred in Hinduism, practiced by nearly 80 percent of India's 1.3 billion people. Many states already prohibit cow slaughter. Though cow is worshiped as god in many parts of the country, for the percussion artists in God’s Own Country, the skin of the slaughtered cattle is a means of livelihood as chenda and other percussion instruments are made of the tanned skin of cattle.

4.30 pm : Interaction and closing remarks