Minor History

Minor History is a portrait of Wahid, the 90-year-old uncle of the artist. This true storyteller was born in India in the 1920s, fled to Pakistan, joined the army there and came to the US in the 1980s. He now lives in a cold, snowy city and is a well-known eccentric in the pool halls. The film tries to map out the radical changes in consciousness that the world has gone through in one human life. Shots of Wahid in his everyday life are juxtaposed with footage in which he tells the camera about his past.

Minor History personifies a worldwide story about whimsical developments in the 20th century and the confusions and problems that people wrestled with then. It’s not about ‘important’ events in politics, life in the big city and high culture. Maybe the echoes of history are better recorded in people and well-known places than in books and theoretical texts.

Also see Frameworks Acolyte Talk Asad Raza.