Written by Kianna Best on Jul 19, 2022. Posted in Production News

BFI expanded presents Child of Empire virtual experience

Virtual reality experience Child of Empire will be presented by BFI expanded. It will showcase the 1947 Partition of India and Pakistan. The immersive production will  premier on 1 August 2022 and continue through until 8 August.

 

 

Sparsh Ahuja, co-creator of Child of Empire stated: “By highlighting the similarities of migration journeys on either side of the border, Child of Empire is a reminder that it is ordinary people that suffer the most when nationalisms are created and torn apart by political elites.”

 

August will mark the 75th anniversary of the Partition of India and Pakistan. The animated experience takes the spectator through a personal journey of the historical event. Child of Empire follows two men navigating the partition era. Ishar Das Arora (voiced by Adil Hussain) an Indian Hindu who migrated from Pakistan to India, and Iqbal-ud-din Ahmed (voiced by Salman Shahid), a Pakistani Muslim who made the opposite journey, recount their childhood experiences whilst playing a board game. Through their stories, they  transport the audience to their realities through the seven-year-old's perspective.

 

 

“This film is a challenge to the divisive communalism that unfortunately plagues the subcontinent today,” Ahuja added. “As a child of diaspora, I have come to understand that the important stories of migration are not those of the politics that dictate it, but the people it uproots.”

 

Child of Empire first premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival as part of the New Frontier programming slate. It was also included in the Alternate Realities showcase at the 2022 Sheffield Documentary Festival, as well as being selected for the Venice Film Festival’s Gap Financing Market.

 

 

Also premiering 1 August 2022 is Last Migrations, a three-part animation shining a light on marginalised South Asian communities, including women, the Chettiar diaspora and the stateless. Both animated productions are involved with Project Dastaan, a peace building initiative examining the human impact of global migration through the lens of the 1947 partition.

 

The BFI’s position as a cultural charity and their mission to support creativity, offer the widest range of UK and international moving images, and share their knowledge to increase cultural awareness through the visual sector, provides the best space for these projects to reach their audiences.

 

 

Images courtesy of  The British Film Institute

 

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