Screening of Guli’s Children

KOCHI:
Centre for Public Policy Research, a think tank based in Kochi organised a screening of the film ‘Guli’s Children’ at its office in Elamkulam, Kochi.The screening was followed by an interactive session with the filmmaker.
Calicut (also known as Guli in Chinese) was an important node in the overall links between China and Kerala. Guli’s Children (43 mins) successfully locates the descendants of a Malayalee family that moved from Calicut to China over 700 years ago, and settled there. It brings out the cultural-historical ties, the physical artefacts and, most importantly, traces of human genealogy that survive between Kerala and China to this day. The film has been screened in India, China, United States, Singapore, Denmark & France and made it to the shortlists at two international film festivals – Roma CineDoc fest (Italy) and the Wolves Independent International Film Awards (Lithuania). The film is a work of non-fiction. This is Joe’s debut film, and is basically a visual representation of his current research. The teaser is available at Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52hXHycB9H4 .
Dr. Joe Thomas Karackattu is an Assistant Professor at the Humanities and Social Sciences Department, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras. He was “Fox Fellow (2008-09)” at Yale University. Most recently he was chosen as a “China India Scholar-Leader” for 2017-19 by the India China Institute, New School, New York, USA. He was one of eight chosen globally.
Joe also was invited to serve as an Editor of H-Asia (a member of H-Net Humanities & Social Sciences Online based at Michigan State University, USA) for two years starting in 2016. He has been an article editor/ reviewer for Journal of Contemporary China, Journal of Current Chinese Studies (GIGA) and SAGE. In ‘2015, Joe was selected as an “Emerging Scholar” from India, chosen by the India China Institute, New York, USA for his work on the making of the boundary between India and China. That work was recently published in the prestigious Royal Asiatic Society journal (published by Cambridge University Press).
In 2013 Joe was chosen as the first “Centenary Visiting Fellow”, at SOAS, University of London (Nominated award). In 2012 he received the Taiwan Fellowship 2012, and he was a visiting research faculty at the National Chengchi University in Taiwan. He was also recipient of the 2011 “President’s Award” at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in Delhi [Conferred by the Defence Minister of India] for outstanding publication. He was awarded the INLAKS Foundation Research Travel Grant in 2009 for PhD fieldwork in China. During his undergraduate studies, he was awarded the ‘Ranojit Khanna Memorial Scholarship’ for the year 2000-01 by the Department of Economics, St. Stephen’s College, University of Delhi.
Although he is not a filmmaker by formal training, his debut film, Guli’s Children, on the cultural-diplomatic history of interaction between Kerala and China was shortlisted at two international film festivals – Roma Cinedoc (2016; Italy) and Wolves International Film Festival (2016; Lithuania). Spanning over two years of research, and nearly 20000 kilometres of fieldwork across India and China, the film is a work of non-fiction. The film has been screened, on invitation, in China (Beijing & Shanghai), United States (New York city & Yale University), NUS Singapore, Denmark (Univ of Copenhagen) and most recently in France (University of Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris), apart from screenings across India (Calicut, Chennai, Kottayam, Mumbai, Delhi and now Kochi).
Joe is trained in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, and Chinese Studies from JNU. He has published in several journals including Journal of Contemporary China, Issues and Studies, South Asian Journal, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism, South Asian Studies Quarterly, China Public Administration Review, and China Report, among others. He is also author of the book The Economic Partnership Between India and Taiwan in a Post-ECFA Ecosystem (published with Springer, 2013).