And so the second day of Auroville’s 6th Film Festival is already behind us. In the afternoon, I betook myself to the SAIIER building for a series of shorter films, firstly a film about SAIIER itself, emphasizing the central role in Aurovilian education of the psychic being – a very important message for all who find themselves in life-long education. What followed was Christoph Pohl’s How to Make Video Art in 4 Easy Steps; an indispensable guide to the medium of video, which all filmmakers really should watch. (Serena Aurora, I’m thinking of you!) After 8pm, the outside cinema showed a most enlightening film, Two Flags, detailing the plight of the French-Tamil citizens of Pondicherry, who numbered 4,000 at the time of filming. The film was centered around the French national elections of 2017.

Personally, the highlight of the evening was the music, from 6.30 to 8pm. The evening began with the soulful reflections of singer songwriter Raquel Jover, a very talented young lady indeed. What followed was a live jazz improvisation, lead by German saxophonist and pianist, Gottfried Klier. Gottfried was a member of the seminal German blues fusion band, Engerling, during the late 1970s, and remains a player, composer and teacher of note to this day. Last night he was joined by Auroville’s Suresh Bascara on drums and Dhani Muniz on bass, as they created a piece live, based around a drone and the opening theme from Aaron Copeland’s Fanfare for the Common Man. It was a truly magical experience. This festival just keeps getting better and better!