Film Screening: Guli’s Children

Event Start Date:
September 20, 2017
Event End Date:
September 20, 2017
Event Venue:
Centre for Public Policy Research, 'Anitha', first floor, SA Road, Elamkulam, Kochi-682020

CPPR invites you to the screening of ‘Guli’s Children’, a non-fiction film that traces the descendants of family that located to China from Calicut, Kerala some 700 years ago. The film directed by Joe Thomas Karackattu (Assistant Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Madras) will be screened at the CPPR office on September 20, 2017 (Wednesday) at 3 pm.

Guli's Children poster

About the film:

Calicut (also known as GULI in Chinese) was an important node in the overall links between China and Kerala. Guli’s Children (43 mins) successfully locates the descendants of a Malayalee family that moved from Calicut to China over 700 years ago, and settled there. It brings out the cultural-historical ties, the physical artefacts and, most importantly, traces of human genealogy that survive between Kerala and China to this day. The film has been screened in India, China, United States, Singapore, Denmark & France and made it to the shortlists at two international film festivals – Roma CineDoc fest (Italy) and the Wolves Independent International Film Awards (Lithuania). The film is a work of non-fiction. This is Joe’s debut film, and is basically a visual representation of his current research. The teaser is available at Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52hXHycB9H4 .

About the filmmaker

Dr. Joe Thomas Karackattu is an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. He was “Fox Fellow (2008-09)” at Yale University and, more recently, was selected as a ‘China India Scholar Leader’ for 2017-19 by the India China Institute at the New School, New York (one of eight, chosen globally). He was also recipient of the inaugural “Centenary Visiting Fellowship” (nominated award) at SOAS, University of London in 2013.  Dr Karackattu is also an Editor with H-ASIA (part of Humanities and Social Sciences Online, based at Michigan State University). He studied Economics at St. Stephen’s College in Delhi and International Relations at JNU. He has been teaching at the Humanities and Social Sciences department at IIT Madras since 2013.