“A folk tale is like a Banyan seed, from which grow infinite trees.”
“Much of the music that I play on radio is from personal archives of passionate fans and collectors.”
“The problem with Capitalism is not the market. It’s that it is Anti Market.”
“Can you bargain with the Cinema Hall? But you can bargain with us DVD pirates. That’s why people love piracy.”
A Heavy Metal Gig
Partners in Crime
A rollicking trip through the grey worlds of copyright, art and the market in a story about love, money and crime.
Documentary | 94 min | English and Hindi with English subtitles | India | 2011
Partners in Crime is a story about art, crime, love and money.
Who owns a song – the person who made it or the person who paid for it? When more than three fourths of those with an internet connection download all sorts of material for free, are they living out a brand new cultural freedom – or are they criminals? Is piracy organized crime or class struggle? Are alternative artists who want to hold rights over their art and go it alone in the market, visionaries or nutcases? Is the fine line between plagiarism and inspiration a cop-out or a whole other way of looking at the fluid nature of authorship?
Full of wicked irony, great music and thorny questions Partners in Crime travels to various parts of India to explore the grey horizons of copyright and culture during times when technology is changing the contours of the market.
Metal heads who market their own music, folklorists who turn tribal aphorisms into short stories, music archivists who hoard and share everything they can get their hands on, anti-piracy fanatics who think piracy funds terrorism, a smooth talking DVD street salesman who outlines the efficiency of the illegal market, media moguls, lobbyists, “monetizers, downloaders, uploaders, the biggest hit song of 2010 and the small time nautanki singer whose song it was inspired by – these places and people throng the world’s bazaar in which the film is set.
Featuring
Vijay Dandetha, Thermal and a Quarter, Lawrence Liang, Demonic Resurrection, Pete Lockett, itwofs.com, Scribe, Rampat Harami & Rani Bala, Ram Sampat, Jumma Khan, Irfan of Dil Ne Phir Yaad Kiya, CDrack.in and many others.
Festivals
- Best Documentary, Ladakh International Film Festival
- In Competition at – Film South Asia, Kathmandu, 2011
- Mumbai International Film Festival, 2012
- You Don’t Belong Film Festival, Beijing and Shanghai, 2012
BUY PARTNERS IN CRIME – INTERNATIONAL
Producer
Magic Lantern Foundation
Executive Producer
Devi Pictures
Director
Paromita Vohra
Camera
Shanti Bhushan, Bakul Sharma
Editing
Rikhav Desai
Sound
Asheesh Pandya, Chris Burchell, Gissy Michael
Category
Films