“Campus has become unsafe place for the discriminated,” said Archana Phadke, cinematographer, who worked with director Abhay Kumar for Placebo , a documentary that delineates the travails of students’ life in one of the country’s top colleges.
According to Ms. Phadke, who participated in an interaction at the 8th BIFFes, the film is a “visual dairy of stress, loneliness, anxiety and apathy of students”. Placebo is a medicine or procedure prescribed for the psychological benefit to the patient rather than for any physiological effect.
When asked about the suicide of Rohith Vemula, a student of Hyderabad Central University, considering the fact that Placebo is about life on campus, Ms. Phadke said, “Caste is a factor on campuses of major educational institutions across the country. The film echoes experiences across the institutions that offer prestige along with degrees.”
The clandestine way Placebo was made is itself a subject for film-making. The making commenced with pure personal note, when the 25-year-old sibling of Abhay Kumar in an explosion of fury during a fight on the AIIMS campus smashed his right arm into a glass window. Following that Abhay Kumar lived secretly on the medical college campus for two years to do this film. He smuggled himself and his hand-held camera into the hostel of the medical college. His film is based on extensive interviews with four students, one of whom was his brother. “He shot some 1,100 hours of footage and finally brought it down to 96 minutes,” Ms. Phadke said.
However, this documentary has faced no problem so far and got overwhelming response at various film festivals. Because of the increase in pressure from parents, those who join prestigious institutions start suffering from anxiety and apathy. They start feeling inferior as they could not compete in the “rat race”, she said.
The crew wanted to screen the film on campuses across the country to sensitise parents, managements and students. “I am apprehensive about the end result considering the crass commercialisation of the education system,” she said.
