Varun R Kurtkoti

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA under Workshops/Residencies will create production and dialogue-based filmmaking workshops with Belaku Studios for young adults and folk artists belonging to the Dalit communities in the villages of Dharwad-Belgaum region of North Karnataka. Varun R Kurtkoti is the Coordinator for this project. 

Varun R Kurtkoti is a filmmaker, community artist and arts educator who divides his time between Bangalore and Dharwad, Karnataka. Varun’s practice includes animation, filmmaking, theatre, ethnography and designing film and sound pedagogies. Varun has an MA in Community Arts & Applied Anthropology from Goldsmiths University, London, and a Diploma in Art & Design, from Srishti Institute of Art, Design & Technology. Varun has been a recipient of National Geographic Young Explorer fellowship in 2017 and PSBT-Doordarshan Filmmaking Fellowship in 2019. Given Varun’s experience he is best placed to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.

This project titled Set to Music: Filmmaking and Folk Music Practices Workshop is about collaborating with artists who perform forms such as Karadi Majalu or Padas (‘utterances’, or songs) such as Sobhane Pada, Hanti Pada, as well as Bhajanapadas written by saint poets like Shishunala Sharif and Madivalajja Naagalinga. Songs/performances will be chosen by participating artists for visual and critical exploration. The workshops will be based in the Mangenakoppa village, Khanapur Taluka in Belgaum district. The workshop will include participants from villages such as Valmiki Nagar, Bidi, Mangenakoppa, Goshanetti, Hulikottal, Handur, Kasamalagi, Gandigwad in Khanapur Taluka in North Karnataka. The workshops will be in collaboration with Belaku Studios, a recording studio founded by Fakkirappa Hulikottal, with the intention of not just capturing the folk music of the region, but also addressing the socio-political context of folk music practice by Dalit communities in North Karnataka. The impulse of Belaku Studio is to capture folk music as a live form of art, and not as ‘a dying art form’.

The folk music of North Karnataka is complex and diverse, including various forms like Gee Gee Pada, Bhajana pada, Chowdki Pada, Sobaana Pada, Karbala Pada, Laali Pada, Karadi Majalu, Dallina Pada, Jaggaligi and so on. Foregrounding the making of folk film-language is particularly significant in the cultural historic context of North Karnataka, that has poetic antecedents from Vachanas and Padas of saints like Akka Mahadevi, Shishunala Sharif, Allama Prabhu, and songs of collective authorships, as well as the importance of Dharwad in the twentieth century, with Gnanpith winning writers as well as stalwarts of Hindustani Classical Music like Bhimsen Joshi, Gangubhai Hangal, Basavaraj Rajguru and Mallikarjun Mansur. The project aspires to make a folk-filmic assertion in the heartland of Classical culture. 

For the workshops, 15 to 20 young adults will be invited, including five women, as participants by the Belaku Studio team, from the villages in Khanapur Taluk. The workshops are planned to happen in three phases. In the first phase, the project coordinator Varun will lead discussions on the basics of filmmaking, including camera and audio production and scripting. This will be followed by Fakkirappa Hulikottal (Belaku Studio founder, activist & researcher, from Hulikottal) and Shilpa Mubdi (musician, facilitator and researcher) leading sessions on understanding folk-song narrative structures and performance-based dialogues. The first phase will be concluded with film screenings, listening sessions and performance sharing. The second phase will include research for film and editing, led by Varun, followed by sessions on seeking folk visual language and contextualising folk song-narrative structures led by Arun Joladkudligi (professor & folk researcher), Fakkirappa Hulikottal and Sharada Dabade (women's rights & cultural activist), followed by short film productions led by Varun Kurtkoti and Fakkirappa Hulikottal. The third and final phase will include strategising for outreach to audiences, reimagining and scripting folk song-narrative structures for film, post-productions, reviews, and final sharing, that will be led by all the facilitators mentioned above, also joined by Vishal Kumaraswamy (film based artist, researcher & curator). 

The IFA project envisions that through these workshops, the participants will learn skills of audio-video production to confidently capture their practices, collectively with facilitators to come up with aesthetics and methods, of a folk visual language that will inspire and encourage further exploration, criticality and experimentation among folk artists as well as village youths in the Dharwad-Belgaum region, to reflect on local socio-political contexts.  

The outcomes of the project would be the workshop series that will culminate with the production and sharing of the films made collaboratively by the participants and artists. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA, along with the final report, will be the short films produced by the participants and the audio-visual and photographic documentation of the workshop process.

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Practice programme in the manner in which it attempts to find a language for Dalit folk music captured through film art, in the cultural melting pot of Dharwad, that has been acclaimed for Bhakti poetry, modern literature, and Hindustani Classical Music, where the project will foreground folk music as a live form of art that reflects on socio-political contexts. 

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.

This project is made possible with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment Fund.