E-Paper
The power of free voices
The scenario for documentary films in India is looking up despite multiple challenges, writes Saibal Chatterjee.
The intrepid spirit of a growing band of independent documentary filmmakers in India has infused fresh dynamism into a movement that has of late run into the dual challenges of political/religious bigotry and official intolerance. Even as uncompromising essays like Anand Patwardhan's War and Peace and Rakesh Sharma's Final Solution continue to be crafted, a climate is being created for a wide variety of free, innovative voices to seep through the crevices of institutionalised prejudice and enrich Indian documentary cinema.
It is in this context that the role of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT), formed a little over three years ago to promote alternative filmmaking, assumes significance. Evidence of the beneficial impact that the trust has had on the independent documentary movement is on full view at the ongoing weeklong international festival of documentary and reality films, Open Frame 2004.
Conceived and organised by PSBT, a not-for-profit outfit that operates in partnership with Doordarshan and is supported by UNESCO and Ford Foundation, the third edition of the annual event brings together some 50 independent documentaries from all over the world. Above all, it showcases an array of low-cost public service documentary films made by young Indian filmmakers.
Says Rajiv Mehrotra, PSBT's managing trustee and seasoned documentary filmmaker: "Our aim is to create an effective platform for independent young voices in the crowded broadcasting space." With the government-funded Prasar Bharati Corporation throwing its considerable weight behind the activities of PSBT, the trust's supply chain provides Doordarshan as many as 52 reality films each year.
It is clearly a success story that does bear repetition. "Broadcasting in India," argues Mehrotra, "has grown exponentially. But public entitlement in the shaping and distribution of content hasn't kept pace." With a film a week to show for its efforts, PSBT has obviously plugged the gap to a certain extent by distancing the filmmaking process from commercial imperatives or political pressures.
The fruitful PSBT experiment, which has already yielded 150-odd widely acclaimed independent documentaries, has enthused Prasar Bharati enough for it to extend the partnership by "a second tranche of three years". Says K.S. Sarma, CEO, Prasar Bharati Corporation: "Independent documentaries and reality films cannot come out of a completely commercial set-up. It is to fulfill Doordarshan's charter as a public service broadcaster that we are partnering PSBT. PSBT can do what we cannot as Prasar Bharati due to commercial pressures."
The seven-day festival opened on August 27 with Sabina Kidwai's Shadows of Freedom, funded by PSBT, and BBC undercover reporter Mark Daly's Secret Policeman. While the former delves into the lives of three women in a liberal Muslim family seen through the eyes of the filmmaker herself, the latter uses a hidden camera to expose the deep-seated prejudices that plague the Manchester police force.
