MUMBAI: Pramila, Kanaka, Vithabai and Jarjum Ete may sound like run-of-the-mill names, but each of them has an interesting and inspiring tale behind them. The inspiring lives of such women form part of the oral history documentation by Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women (SPARROW), which is organising a two-day film festival in Mumbai, titled `Women's Lives, Women's Words,' from November 4.

Announcing the festival, SPARROW director and Tamil writer C.S. Lakshmi said the nine films chosen for it represented the kind of work the organisation had been engaged in.

"Women's history is not visible and this kind of oral history documentation is an attempt to do just that," she said.

`Making a difference'

The films have been made as part of the University of Michigan's `Global Feminism' project about women who have made a difference.

For instance, Shahjehan Aapa became a part of the movement after a personal tragedy — her daughter Noorjehan was burnt to death. She emerged from the trauma to establish an organisation called Shakti Shalini in New Delhi, which works on women's grievances.

Motivating figures

The films are about women such as K.R. Ambika, who portrayed male roles in folk theatre, and Malathama, a theatre artiste who started performing at the age of four, and her daughter Jayshree.

Malathama is the daughter of Gubbi Veeranna, a legendary figure in Kannada theatre.

The film on Vithabai Narayangaonkar, a Tamasha artiste from Maharashtra, depicts her growing years as a child from a poor Dalit family of performers to her later life, where she faced several crises.

The film was completed a few months before she died.

Jarjum Ete is the chairperson of the Arunachal Pradesh State Commission on Women.

She has been fighting to ensure women's participation in panchayats and the implementation of customary laws and anti-liquor laws.

"These are the voices of women we do not hear as they are not in the public domain," Ms. Lakshmi said.

9 films to be screened

SPARROW has so far made 21 films on women from various walks of life, of which nine would be screened at the festival, being jointly organised by the Mahila Vyaspeeth.

The film on Pramila, a Jewish actress in the Hindi film industry during the 1930s and 40s, was directed by the late Asha Dutta.

Vishnu Mathur from the Film and Television Institute of India directed the remaining movies.

Focus on subject

Oral history films use a different format. The interviewers are low-key and the attempt is to focus on the subject of the film and the narrative.

SPARROW wants these movies to reach a wide audience. It was conceived in 1988 as a women's archive with a difference.

Archiving women

Those behind the venture wanted to build a national archive for women with print, oral history and pictorial material. It has over 8,000 photographs, 410 documentaries in seven languages, 330 oral recordings, apart from articles, clippings and other material.

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