A series of images of the construction of National Highway, sounds of vehicles and workers, and many thought-provoking questions form the basis of R.P. Amudhan’s 10-minute documentary — The Road.
The 2008 documentary highlights issues such as, ‘Who owns the highways?’, ‘When foreign direct investment and multinational Indian companies take over the road with heavy funding for construction and expansion, who owns them finally?’, ‘Do villagers who are robbed off their land own it?’, ‘What about schoolchildren?’
Rare privilegeKnown for his hard-hitting documentaries, the filmmaker was in the city as part of a screening programme organised by Environmental Film Society (EFS) and Vizag Film Society (VFS) on Sunday.
It was a rare privilege for viewers to watch three of his documentaries and participate in an interactive session with him following the screening.
“ The Road is more of a sound film. Lot of effort went behind the sound production of the film,” said the filmmaker, who won the best film award at the One Billion Eyes Film Festival in 2005 and the National Jury Award at the Mumbai International Film Festival 2006, among many other accolades.
Radical for the way they question some of the commonly accepted notions on caste hierarchies, Amudhan’s documentaries are a reflection of the invisible underbelly of society.
His documentary ‘Seruppu’ is a socio-cultural documentary on the lives of Catholic Arundhatiyars, a Dalit Christian community of Dharmanathapuram, an old slum in Tiruchirappalli.
The traditional occupation of the community of the region is footwear making. The film portrays the life and struggle of the inhabitants. Besides the struggle for livelihood, they also face discrimination within the church as their fellow Catholics of the “upper caste” practice untouchability and hegemony over the lower caste Christians.
Shot in three parts, the documentary also highlights the dwindling returns from their traditional profession of footwear-making with the entry of multinational companies.
The other documentary screened was ‘Hey Mr. Gandhi, Leave the Indians Alone!’ This 28-minute documentary is about three villages near Madurai, where 1,500 acres of fertile land is alienated for a Special Economic Zone.
