SPECIAL MENTION - International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala | SPECIAL MENTION BY JURY - Mumbai International Film Festival | BEST FILM BY A WOMAN DIRECTOR - Indian Film Festival of Cincinnati
Kashmiri Pandit Experience • Exile & Displacement • Conflict • Identity & Belonging • Representation • Human Rights
Date of Completion: 2021 | Run Time: 67 minutes | Languages: English, Kashmiri, Hindi | Captions: Yes | Includes: Transcript | Director: Madhulika Jalali | Executive Producer: Khushboo Raj
GHAR KA PATA is an autobiographical account of my inquiry into my identity as a Kashmiri Pandit Woman (Kashmiri Hindu Minority) in the absence of my own memory. My family left Kashmir in early 1990s as a part of the Kashmiri Pandit exodus due to the armed insurgency. I was 6 years old at that time and therefore grew up remembering nothing of my home. 24 years later, I went to Kashmir for the first time with my family. That event acts as a catalyst for me to rediscover and retrace my roots with the help of my sisters and extended family. We hear oral accounts of a less documented event and time in the history of Kashmir which reveals the deep connections that go beyond religion and politics. At a personal level, it reveals the cruelty of exile and how it continues across generations.
The Hindu | Shilpa Anandraj
Madhulika Jalali’s film is a quest for her Kashmiri roots
Architectural Digest India | Siddhartha Gigoo
"Ghar Ka Pata is a historically significant documentary to have come out of India. An intimate testimony of love, loss, suffering, and reconciliation, it illumines an equally important yet often ignored and forgotten side of the Kashmir conflict."
India Today | Suhani Singh
"There have been many narratives about Kashmir on the big screen, but none feels as personal as Ghar Ka Pata even if it comes from a filmmaker who now lives in exile in her own country."
The Indian Express | Written by Ishita Sengupta
"Ghar Ka Pata, in essence, documents Madhulika’s shifting status from a tourist to an immigrant. But apart from being a heart-rending personal account, it provides human faces to an exodus whose severity keeps coming in the way of recovery."
Mid-Day | Vedika Mane
Interview with Madhulika Jalali, the director of Home Address/Ghar Ka Pata
"The film is a search for memory and an understanding of how uprooted one can feel by not having the choice to go back and make that childhood home, even in their memory."
AWARDS
Special Mention By Jury | Mumbai International Film Festival
Best Film By A Woman Director | Indian Film Festival Of Cincinnati
Special Mention | International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala