Director: Paski
Summary: Centred around a death and its aftermath in a Muslim family from Malabar in Kerala, 'Epitaph' is an 18-minute contemplation on the trials of existence. Writer-actor Paski asks questions of universal appeal through an incident imagined in the milieu she was born and raised. 'Epitaph' raises the pertinent question of the extent of a person's rights over their own body. Here death becomes the lychgate that separates a person from the choices they made, the agency they exercised and the visions they foresaw in their lifetime. The graveyard testifies to this and becomes a burial site for not just a person's physical and intellectual life, but also their autonomy and freedom. How can a person's body not be theirs after death? 'Epitaph' delves into these concerns through four different female characters that represent feelings of sensitivity, fear, helplessness and freedom. Between their murmur and mutter, three of them reinforce the established moral order on the face of the death of the fourth. With death, a person's right to their body is claimed by others. Paski's first short film is a series of questions that aim to disentangle the social fabric woven on customs and beliefs. True to its title, 'Epitaph' is an elegy for life, autonomy and freedom.
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