Samrruddhi Porey, director of the Marathi film `I want to be a mother’ which deals with the issue of surrogate child and mother, said here on Monday that surrogacy is a big business in India today.
Speaking at the Meet the Press programme organised on the sidelines of the 16 International Film Festival of Kerala (IFFK) Ms Porey said that many poor and illiterate women from rural areas are being trapped into this business without knowing the social, emotional and physical complexities linked with surrogacy with the promise lakhs of rupees as reward.
``I don’t think that IVF surrogacy is a bad practice. But there is an urgent need to strengthen the laws as a number of middlemen are making money out of this business by cheating poor woman. My point is just that the welfare of the mother should be taken care of,’’ she said.
Ms Porey, who is an advocate, said that `I want to be a mother’, which has also bagged a national award, is her first attempt in cinema. ``I am happy that my very first film got so much recognition. This is probably the fist film on the relationship between a European child and his surrogate mother. The child who plays the son in the film is also the world’s first surrogate actor,’’ she said. The film has been included in the Indian Cinema Section of the festival.
Miaoyan Zhang director, of Chinese film `Black Blood’ and V.K. Prakash, director of Malayalam film `Karmayogi’ were also present at the programme. Mr Zhang said that he picked up the story of the film, included in the Competition Section, from real life. `Black Blood’ is the story of a rural Chinese family combating with poverty and disease.
``The story that I have portrayed in the film is actually sweeter compared to real life story. This is in a way a personal film. I shot this with minimum production set up,’’ he said.
Mr Prakash, meanwhile said that his film `Karmayogi’ is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s `Hamlet’. ``The main challenge in making this film was to decide on how much theatrical and realistic we had to keep it. Ultimately it has come out as a realistic film with elements of theatre,’’ he said.
