(Top) Charlotte’s Piggy Bank by David McKee and Quentin Blake’s ABC will be displayed at Magic Pencil

Up ahead: a dash of magic for kids in the city looking for ways to spend their summer vacations. Magic Pencil, a British exhibition of children?s illustrations, opens at the British Council and Seagull Arts & Media Resource Centre on May 19 and will continue till May 31. ?Magic Pencil is a well-known visual arts exhibition that has travelled around the world,? explains Samarjit Guha, head, programmes, British Council. ?The illustrations have been selected by celebrated children?s author and illustrator Quentin Blake.?

Magic Pencil was first held in Newcastle in September 2002. Since then, it has travelled to the Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Poland and Belgium.

In Calcutta, 12 of the 60 illustrations would be displayed in British Council?s The Stairs ? its staircase gallery ? and the rest at Seagull. Besides illustrations by Blake, there would be pieces by 12 other British artists such as Raymond Briggs, Angela Barrett, Patrick Benson, John Burningham and Michael Foreman.

There is a host of art-related activities lined up during the exhibition. An adda on children?s literature with Sukanta Chaudhuri and Abhijit Gupta from Jadavpur University?s department of English and Sandip Ray will be held on May 19.

Seagull?s Sukanya Ghosh, also a digital film-maker, will conduct an animation workshop, It Was You Blue Kangaroo, on May 19 and 20 at Seagull. ?Because of the short duration, we will not be able to go in-depth. It will be more of an introduction to animation,? says Ghosh. ?We will try to help the kids create small animation clips.?

Chitra Bhaskar, a teacher of Birla High School, will deal with storytelling and acting on May 21, Amar and Sabyasachi Sen will elaborate on hand shadowgraphy on May 26 while theatre personality Zarine Chaudhuri will dwell on mime and action on May 28.

Comics lovers can look forward to Dear Diary, a workshop on the graphic novel by Sarnath Banerjee on May 23 and 24. ?The young ones don?t get to talk and much of what they have to say remains unexpressed,? says Banerjee, who wrote Corridor, the first graphic novel to come out of India. ?But this is the time when the changes happen and their lives for the next 20 to 30 years shape up.?

Banerjee will try to ?nudge and navigate? the youngsters to give vision to their ideas. Pieces will be read from works like The Diary of Anne Frank to help participants develop their thoughts. Only Banerjee?s workshop will be for those aged 15 and above. ?The rest will be open to children above eight years,? clarifies British Council?s Guha.

Besides the workshops and the exhibition, films like Nightmare Before Christmas and Wizard of Oz will be screened daily. Mythological Monsters, an art competition on May 28 at Seagull, will have around 40 city schools participating.

Subhajit Banerjee

Films and feminity

Celebrating the drive and spirit of women film-makers, a package of internationally acclaimed works is travelling to town this week. Titled Made by Women, the festival features award-winning films by 10 women directors from across the globe.

The India tour started with Thiruvananthapuram on April 9 before moving on to Chennai, Bangalore, Pune and Delhi. The three-day city fare, put up by Swayam along with the Mumbai-based Point of View and Federation of Film Societies of India, begins on May 16 at Nandan II.

The inaugural film is Harlequin by Lotte Reigner, representing a slice from the huge body of the German film-maker?s animation work. American Joan Gratz?s Mona Lisa Descending a Staircase, on the same evening, tracks the progression of modern art from Van Gogh to Warhol. The work fetched Gratz an Oscar for Best Short Film.

Heddy Honigman?s documentary The Underground Orchestra is located in the subway stations of Paris where several refugee musicians perform every day. The Day I became a Woman, the last film of the evening, by Marziyeh Meshkini from Iran is an account of the three stages ? childhood, adulthood and old age ? in the lives of three women. The work was adjudged best film at the Venice Film Festival.

Day Two begins with Norwegian director Margreth Olin?s My Body, a study of her physical appearance and its relation with her sense of identity. My Body was declared the best documentary at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. A second entry by Joan Gratz, The Dowager?s Feast, is an animation with abstract images through clay painting.

In True Story About Love, Australia-based Melissa Kyu-Jung Lee recounts a personal story, raising issues about sexual identity and the question of ethics in documentary film-making. British director Jayne Parker captures underwater choreography with her camera where a woman dances to music by Schumann in The Whirlpool.

Sancharram, by Ligy Pullappally from India, is a touching story about the intimacy between two young girls. The 106-minute feature bagged the best film award at Chicago International Film Festival.

Of the three screenings on the concluding day, first up is Finland-based Mervi Jukkonen?s Barbeiros. The documentary probes the hidden tensions between the owner of a barbershop and his hairdresser.

Purity by Anat Zuria from Israel lashes out at the sexual taboos entrapping orthodox Jewish women. The film fetched awards at One World Human Rights Film Festival and Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival, among others.

Wrapping up the festival is How I Killed My Father by Anne Fontaine, where the French director journeys into a sweet-and-sour father-son relationship.

Town awaits Tabu as Ashima Ganguli

At least half the town has gone into a tizzy, as Mira Nair?s team scouts faces young and old for The Namesake. But more madness is in store when Bollywood star Tabu, accompanied by Irrfan, comes down next weekend to play Ashima Ganguli in a north Calcutta household. The film will also be an opportunity for Tabu to catch up with the Tollywood friends she had made while shooting for Goutam Ghose?s Abar Aranye.