At a time when even documentary filmmakers are looking for a hint of glamour in their subjects, young Arjun Pandey goes in for a grave hard-hitting issue and accords it appropriate treatment. The young filmmaker probes the issue of farmer suicide in his film Life Apps . The film was also screened at the the Rio Earth Summit.
The 30-minute documentary, that was also shown in Delhi, sheds light on the lives of these farmers and the reasons that push them to take their lives. Not just harping on the problems, the film also provides solutions in terms of a mobile application called ‘Mobile Harvest’ invented by Sachin Gaur (co-founder of MixOrg) and his team, that can help curb this problem.
The documentary was screened at Iron Curtain, a newly opened restaurant with a private cinema located in the back streets of Hauz Khas Village. Arjun Pandey, who won the coveted National Award in 2005 for his documentary “Timeless Traveller”, says, “I began my search for a young researcher in India driven by ideological fervour, who wants to do something with apps that benefits rural India. After a long search, I came to know about Sachin Gaur. As I was looking for young ‘software heroes’ in India, I found the perfect catch. The rest, I consider, is history.” He is also the head of Twenty Four Frames Films, a premier production house, under the banner of which this documentary has been made.
“App in hand, we flew back to our research ground in Andhra Pradesh with trepidation in our hearts. We worked hard and long for inventing this app”, says the Delhi-based engineer Sachin Gaur, who is also the Co-founder of MixOrg, adding that, “We were not sure that the people for whom this app is designed will like it or not. But, soon it was cleared. The straightforward, easy-to-use app found easy acceptance among the farmers and innovators at Andhra. Excited about the windows it opened for them, they even stepped forward with some brilliant suggestions.”
He says that the overall purpose is to connect innovator to his customers, create a feedback channel and bring together users’ experiences in one place. “Every time a customer faces a hitch in using the invention, has a query or requires a repair, the only way out is to travel to the innovator.
This means an investment of one whole day and a couple of hundred rupees by either the innovator or the user. With each innovator having a community of his customers on our app, they could just share pictures of the problem and communicate with one another.
If other users are facing similar hassles, they could benefit by just listening on. Sharing stories of the usage of the supplements would be possible, thus creating a repository of information,” he concludes while explaining the benefits of ‘Mobile Harvest’ App which works on Android cell phone as of now. The organisation is also planning to launch it on Blackberry and Nokia mobiles soon.
