From: Megha Wadhwa <wadhwa.megha@gmail.com> Date: 2024/05/20

Dear all, 

Please find the information below for the online screening of the film "Living like a Common Man" on 12th June from 11:00 to 13:00 (CEST) / 18:00 to 20:00 (JST). This award-winning film looks into the migration journey of young people from India to the UK. Following the screening, there will be a discussion with Sanderien Verstappen, one of the directors, and Darshan Patel, one of the protagonists.

 Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG1vrp_5CpI; Register here: https://forms.office.com/r/YRfdXeybLt

For more information continue reading - 

ICC Sophia University and the Free University of Berlin presents an Online Lecture Series

'Living like a Common Man' 

Sanderien Verstappen, Mario Rutten and Isa- belle Makay (The Netherlands) | London (UK) and Gujarat (India) | 2011 | 65 min | English and Gujarati spoken, English subtitles 

Online Screening & discussion with Sanderien Verstappen and Darshan Patel

 Hosted by Megha Wadhwa & David H. Slater 

"Online Lecture Series "Migration, Memory,and the Art of Storytelling on Film" - Lecture 1 

12 June 2024 (Wed) 

11:00 to 13:00 (CEST)
18:00 to 20:00 (JST) 

 All the lectures will be on Zoom. Please register from here: https://forms.office.com/r/YRfdXeybLt

Synopsis: Young people all over the world dream of going to the West. They hope to earn money and get overseas experience to improve their positions at home. But once they arrive, they end up in low-status jobs and living crammed into small houses with other newly arrived migrants. This film Living like a Common Man follows the daily life in one such house in East London. The bunker beds are filled with young Indians, all from relatively wealthy families in Gujarat. When they return to visit India, their families have great expectations of their sons and daughters. Will these youngsters fulfil their own and their families' dreams? 

https:// www.sanderienverstappen.com/ living-like-a-common-man 

Sanderien Verstappen is an assistant professor with tenure track in Social and Cultural Anthropology with a focus on Visual Anthro- pology at the University of Vienna, and the founding director of the Vienna Visual Anthropology Lab. She is the author of the book New Lives in Anand (University of Washington Press, 2022) which is a multi-sited ethnography based on research in India, the U.K. and the U.S.A.


Darshan Patel is a protagonist of the film Living Like a Common Man. He will join the discussion to share his experiences collabo- rating with the film crew.

This project is a part of BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research Germany) funded project - Qualification and Skill in the Migra- tion Process of Foreign Workers in Asia and supported by Free University of Berlin, Goethe University Frankfurt and the ICC Collaborative Research Unit "Visual Studies and Displace- ment in/to Japan", a Joint Research Unit between Institute of Comparative Culture of Sophia University Japan and Free University of Berlin. 

 For the poster of this event click here: https://www.icc-sophia.com/_files/ugd/2edff9_7c345e30bfd54cec892d3582617f069a.pdf

Best wishes,

Megha 

----------------------------

Megha Wadhwa, Ph.D. 

Post-Doc/Research Associate 
Institute of East Asian Studies

Japanese Studies 
Freie Universität Berlin 

 

Ad. Assistant Professor

Temple University Japan 

Communication Studies

 

Visiting Fellow
Institute of Comparative Culture
Sophia University Tokyo