Free to Sing? ( a Documentary on Kabir Suman )Full

""" Free to Sing? The Music of Suman """
Year 1996
Length 56'
Original Language
Bengali, English
Directed By
Sudipto Chatterjee
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Acknowledgement :
A Documentary on Kabir Suman (previously, Suman Chatterjee), made in 1996-97. Directed and edited by
Sudipto Chatterjee.(সুদীপ্ত চ্যাটার্জী) A Well know Figure of Bengali Culture with Various significant activities.
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Sincere gratitude to Sudipto Chatterjee (copyright holder of this documentary also )
Information Details :
Kabir Suman (Suman (previously, Suman Chatterjee), is a Bengali political singer from Calcutta whose music has recently taken Calcutta by storm. His music is highly synthetic and has traits from diverse sources like classical Indian music, Portuguese fados, American folk, jazz, the German cabaret, Latin American nueva cancion and even Rabindranath Tagore's Bengali music. His political stance, critical of the right as well as the left, has put him in a unique positionwhich has made him a highly persecuted and immensely popular singer at the same time. Free to Sing? is interview based. Suman Chatterjee is not the only man interviewed; the film also features comments from the general public of Calcutta, poets, journalists, artists, intellectuals, fellow musicians from Calcutta as well as the eminent scholar/writer Eric Bentley and the legendary American folk singer/ activist Pete Seeger (who also plays the title music of the film). Needless to say, the film is generously interlaced with song sequences and scenes from Calcutta. In other words the film is a cartography of a map larger than Suman. Free to Sing? also comments on the globality of protest music, hybridity as a valid artistic mode of expression, human rights and Third World politics. Premiered in Chicago, 4 November 1996.
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