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Baraf: ice men of Mumbai

5 minutes

Daily life in Egypt: ancient and modern

27 minutes

The trouble with love and sex

50 minutes

Don’t think twice

12 minutes

EXCLUSIVE

Ping pong Sufi

11 minutes

Mumbai’s fishing industry is hungry for ice. Plunge into the fray with those who feed it

Sassoon Docks is one of Mumbai’s largest and oldest fishing ports. A cacophonous and bustling centre of commerce, some 20 tons of fish are unloaded there daily. When heading out to sea and upon arrival, fish traders rely on the teams of ice makers and transporters at the docks to keep the hauls fresh. Working in teams, these ‘ice men’ – often natives of far-off Uttar Pradesh in northern India – store, shovel, crush and cart vast quantities of ice that fishermen use to preserve their catches during weeks away at sea, and on which merchants keep their goods fresh when displaying them for sale or readying them for transport. In Baraf (Hindi for ‘ice’), bursts of hot and cold seemingly emanate from the screen as the filmmakers Niyantha Shekar and Anirudh Ganapathy catalogue the skills, sweat, aches and breaks of the ice men’s work. With a kinetic editing style, the duo achieve a musical rhythm from the details of craft and community that comprise a microcosm of the larger economic structure of the Mumbai port.

Director and editor: Niyantha Shekar

Director of photography: Anirudh Ganapathy

Producers: Niyantha Shekar, Anirudh Ganapathy

Stunning century-old footage of the Nile valley carries echoes from the ancient past

Released by New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1925, this short film features nearly century-old footage of daily life in the Nile valley. With a distinctly Western perspective, the piece establishes similarities between early 20th-century Egypt and Pharaonic Egyptian life – including mud brick architecture, preindustrial farming and weaving techniques, and the centrality of festivals and the river to the region’s culture. As hinted at by the introductory titles, these through-lines from ancient past to then-present are perhaps overstated, with centuries of Islamisation and Arabisation following the conquest of Roman Egypt in the 7th century CE barely acknowledged. Despite this shortcoming, the refurbished footage is still a visual thrill, providing an extraordinary window into life along the Nile valley as it existed at the dawn of anthropological filmmaking.

Video by The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Cinematographers: Harry Burton, Albert M Lythgoe

‘What does sex mean to you?’ A fly-on-the-wall view of relationship counselling

Iain and Susan have been together for 33 years but they can’t seem to have a conversation without it spiralling into an argument. Dave longs for a loving a relationship, but lacks the confidence to ask anyone out. Ian and Mandy are struggling with personal and sexual intimacy after Ian is diagnosed with a tumour. With animated avatars protecting the anonymity of the participants, The Trouble With Love and Sex (2011) explores these stories of relationship troubles via recordings from inside the walls of Relate – a UK charity that provides couples counselling. Allowing glimpses into a world often only experienced firsthand or in fiction, the UK director Zac Beattie’s touching film approaches the complex business of intimacy, loneliness and therapy with due nuance and care, revealing the many ways that relationships shape the human experience – for better or worse.

Director: Zac Beattie

Animation Director: Jonathan Hodgson

As dementia trims the tree of knowledge in John’s brain, music holds firm

At the age of 24, John Fudge took a violent fall while climbing the white cliffs of Dover in the south of England, splitting open his head and losing consciousness. The extent of his injuries weren’t revealed until decades later, when doctors decided to perform a brain scan after John slipped into a deep depression. The results revealed extensive brain damage, including a progressive form of dementia. Now, 10 years on from his diagnosis, John’s wife Geraldine compares his brain to an oak tree, its limbs of knowledge being slowly trimmed away, causing John great mental anguish. His only relief comes when he’s able to live in the moment, such as when he plays guitar and sings – his musical abilities being an as-yet untrimmed branch. Don’t Think Twice offers an insight into John’s life, including visits from Jon, a young volunteer who joins him for music sessions at home. An affecting and unusually honest portrait of dementia, the UK director Harry Hitchens leaves his viewers to find relief and peace, like John, in the musical moments tucked in between difficult realities.

Director: Harry Hitchens

Producer: Chloe Abrahams

Website: Everyday Studio

‘I’m just measuring myself with myself’ – ping pong as a route to Sufi spiritual practice

A practitioner of the inward-looking form of Islam known as Sufism, Noah Nazir pursues self-improvement as a means of connecting with God. This is especially true at the ping pong table at his local Sufi centre in Sheffield, where Nazir is ever in search of new and creative ways to up his game. And, as he relays in Ping Pong Sufi, his striving has yielded some impressive results. Despite his age and a recent stroke, he’s one of the centre’s best players – even though, he stresses, he views his only competition as from within, commenting: ‘I’m just measuring myself with myself.’ The UK filmmakers Rachel Genn and Connor Matheson cultivate an appropriately meditative mood in their short documentary, made in 2019, capturing Nazir as he seeks transcendence through ping pong and prayer. The result is an illuminating and novel window into Sufi spiritual practice, which is given a musical lift by the multitalented Nazir, who also composed the song that plays over the closing credits.

Directors: Rachel Genn, Connor Matheson

Mumbai’s fishing industry is hungry for ice. Plunge into the fray with those who feed it

Sassoon Docks is one of Mumbai’s largest and oldest fishing ports. A cacophonous and bustling centre of commerce, some 20 tons of fish are unloaded there daily. When heading out to sea and upon arrival, fish traders rely on the teams of ice makers and transporters at the docks to keep the hauls fresh. Working in teams, these ‘ice men’ – often natives of far-off Uttar Pradesh in northern India – store, shovel, crush and cart vast quantities of ice that fishermen use to preserve their catches during weeks away at sea, and on which merchants keep their goods fresh when displaying them for sale or readying them for transport. In Baraf (Hindi for ‘ice’), bursts of hot and cold seemingly emanate from the screen as the filmmakers Niyantha Shekar and Anirudh Ganapathy catalogue the skills, sweat, aches and breaks of the ice men’s work. With a kinetic editing style, the duo achieve a musical rhythm from the details of craft and community that comprise a microcosm of the larger economic structure of the Mumbai port.

Director and editor: Niyantha Shekar

Director of photography: Anirudh Ganapathy

Producers: Niyantha Shekar, Anirudh Ganapathy

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French chefs take part in a videoconference with President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace in Paris, 24 April 2020. Photo by Ludovic Marin/Reuters

Essay/
Technology and the self
Zoom and gloom

Sitting in a videoconference is a uniformly crap experience. Instead of corroding our humanity, let’s design tools to enhance it

Robert O’Toole

Detail of a miniature of Arthur slaying the Spanish giant on the island of Mont-Saint-Michel (1471-1483), by Jean de Wavrin. Royal 15 E IV f. 156. Courtesy the Trustees of the British Library

Essay/
Stories and literature
Empire of fantasy

By conquering young minds, the writing of J R R Tolkien and C S Lewis worked to recapture a world that was swiftly ebbing away

Maria Sachiko Cecire