Candles in the Wind | Docu | Sunday 27 April 2014 | 11 Am | Suchitra
Anand Varadaraj
Punjab.
- the land of the five Rivers...
- the food bowl of India...
The petri-dish of the 'Green Revolution.'
Today, Punjab is in the news for policy-induced non-remunerative agriculture and escalating farm-suicides.
Where men found an easy escape in death, the widows bear the burden of their debt, and yet affirm their faith in life - taking care of children, ageing parents and the chemically-abused fields.
These women stand for the feminine
History will not record the dirges of men who chose to die. Poets shall tell the stories of the women who silently shoulder the sky, standing tall amidst the ruins of the Punjab they love.
'Candles in the wind' witnesses the silent march of these women as they re-negotiate the rules of engagement and the politics of domination in their bid to survive. Their struggle gives us a window into the social-economic flux in rural India.
The strategies of survival and re-negotiation of spaces lends itself to a nuanced understanding of the silent under-currents of a gender-specific struggle in the larger narrative of surviving as a farmer in these times.
The film is a poignant portrayal of these brave farm-widows, with minimalist narration and a cinematic interplay of image and soundscapes.
Award:
Special Mention, National Film Award (2014)
Screening:
World premiere at Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, Greece (2014)
Kavita Bahl & Nandan Saxena are National Award-winning independent film-makers. They completed their Graduate & PG degree in English Literature from University of Delhi (1987-91). As journalists- Kavita worked with one of India's best investigative newspapers- The Indian Express for seven years; Nandan worked for television programmes and news organizations. Thereafter, two years (1994-5) were spent in a challenging assignment in the seven states of north-east India- Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Manipur. Reporting from this strife-torn region of India gave a new direction to their lives. They turned a new leaf in 1996 as independent film-makers.
Their oeuvre spans the domains of culture,
ecology, livelihoods, development and human rights. Kavita is a researcher, a script-writer and a director. Nandan is
a director-cinematographer, an editor and a writer. He is also an avid
photographer who loves to impart training and share his skill with keen
learners. He has a background in theatre which is put to good use in his films.
Over the years, they have evolved their own style of
film-making.
Refusing to conform to the genres of 'documentary' and 'features' – they feel that a film, irrespective of its genre- is about story-telling.
They have just completed a trilogy of films on 'Development
and Agrarian crisis' in India. The films in the trilogy are 'Cotton for my
shroud' (National Film Award 2011),
'Candles in the wind' (National Film Award 2013) & DAMMED (Award for Best Film in Water for All category at Vatavaran Film Festival, New Delhi, 2014).
'Cotton for my shroud' is a film on the escalating suicides of cotton farmers in the Vidarbha region in Maharashtra, India. It was the Headline Film at the World Investigative Film Week at London in January 2013. It has also received the Gold Award for Script at Awards for Excellence (Indian Documentary Producers' Association) & also the award at Dhan Foundation film festival in 2012.
'Candles in the wind' is a film on farmers' widows of Punjab, the bread-basket of India. 'Candles in the wind' witnesses the silent march of these women as they re-negotiate the rules of engagement and the politics of domination in their bid to survive. It had its world premiere at Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (2014).
DAMMED documents the resilient, non-violent Gandhian struggle of the mega dam-affected citizens of the Narmada Valley in India. It is the story of the grit and determination of the Dam-affected villagers of Madhya Pradesh in India, submerged neck-deep in the water of River Narmada, protesting against the apathy of the Indian government and exploitative Dam Corporations.
Besides films, both the film-makers love to travel and take their work to audiences in film-festivals, educational institutes, policy-makers, NGOs and farmers' groups.
They also take master-classes and workshops demonstrating how to make films with a small foot print usig DSLR cameras. They have been invited by various film festivals and educational institutes for holding this workshop.
Fond of classical music, they love to share their country's music and also collect good music from across the world.