Film Documentation

This edit is a rough cut work in progress. As of yet there is no sound and the tableaux are a approximate guide to what may be written for the final piece.

ACT1.2 The Will of Sultan Iltutmish

In this scene, Sultan Iltutmish requests that his daughter Razia to be successor of the Delhi Sutanate. Circa 28th April 1236CE/634 Hejira.

Act 1 Scene 1-3 are an attempt to subvert gendered stereotypes that may destabilise audience preconceptions of the soldier's gender. For when the soldier removes their helmet the audience acknowledges the female protagonist Razia.

ACT1.8 The Lion Gates

Razia and the people demand an audience with the Sultan but are denied

This scene uses Mernissi's reference toward Sultan Iltutmish's installation of two lions at the Palace gates in order to hasten the administration of justice and allow the oppressed to ask for help:

"So he set up two marble statues of lions on two towers at the gate of his palace, and round their necks were two iron chains with a huge bell. The oppressed person would shake the bell in the night and the sultan on hearing the sound would instantly look into his case and administer justice."

(Quotation from Rehla of Ibn Battuta as cited by Mernissi in The Forgotten Queens of Islam, 1993: 95)

The above images are test pieces to create a night time scene