A film by Sunanda Bhat
73 minutes / 2012 / Malayalam with English subtitles
The filmmaker will be present to introduce the film, have a question and answer session after the screening
In a world that has grown more dynamic and uncertain, where diversity and differences make way for standardization and uniformity, the film explores the effects of a rapidly changing landscape on people’s lives and livelihoods. Set in Wayanad, part of the fragile ecosystem of the western mountain range in South India, the film takes you on a journey through a region that is witnessing drastic transformation in the name of development. A woman’s concern over the disappearance of medicinal plants from the forest, a farmer’s commitment to growing traditional varieties of rice organically and a cash crop cultivator’s struggle to survive amidst farmers’ suicides, offer fresh insights into shifting relations between people, knowledge systems and environment. Interwoven into contemporary narratives is an ancient tribal creation myth that traces the passage of their ancestors across this land, recalling past ways of reading and mapping the terrain. As hills flatten, forests disappear and traditional knowledge systems are forgotten, the film reminds us that this diversity could disappear forever, to be replaced by monotonous and unsustainable alternatives.
Sunanda Bhat’s interest in documentaries is to represent people living on the margins of an intricate and stratified Indian society. Convinced about the strengths of storytelling as a way to communicate an idea, Sunanda constantly looks for new and interesting ways of telling these stories. Her latest independent work 'Have you seen the arana?' won critical acclaim with screenings at film festivals in India and abroad. Among the prominent awards are the Golden Conch at Mumbai International Film Festival, Mark Haslam Award at Planet in Focus Film Festival and at the Jean Rouch Ethnographic Film Festival in Paris. She was invited to present her film at Metropolis Kino, an art-house cinema theatre in Hamburg and showcase her film at the Tisch School of the Arts in New York. She has also made commissioned films on rural sanitation, dry land farming by women farmers and many others under the banner Songline Films.
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