In conjunction with Chitra Ganesh’s exhibition Her garden, a mirror , The Kitchen is pleased to present the recently completed documentary film Yeh Freedom Life / This Freedom Life by Priya Sen. Filmed over the course of a year in Ambedkar Nagar, a dense, largely working class area in South Delhi, Yeh Freedom Life moves between the two very different worlds of its protagonists, Sachi and Parveen, and tries to keep up with the currents and swings of their respective loves. Sachi works at a local beauty parlor; Parveen runs the family’s small cigarette counter at a crowded intersection. They are surrounded by a cacophonous city; they are both in love with other women. The film accompanies them through their desire to find and live, according to Sachi, their “freedom lives”–lives that are outside of the constant scrutiny and sanction of society and family. But this “freedom life” also leaves them vulnerable to the precariousness of love, when it refuses such constraints.

Priya Sen is a filmmaker and artist working across film, video, sound, and installation. Her work has largely centered around questions of form, urban ethnographies, music, and migration–mainly in New Delhi, a city in which she chooses to situate her practice. Priya Sen will be present for this screening.

October 4, 7pm. FREE.