Indivisuals will be VJ-ing in the Balie, at the upcoming India Festival in Amsterdam. India is a booming place but beyond the cliches people don’t seem to know a lot about it. The festival wants to show India in unknown ways to the Dutch public, with debate and arts.
Well this is right up our (Seb and my) alley: on out trip we also discovered that the image in India is quite different from the reality. It has a much more diverse and interesting reality in fact. I have a huge collection on video material on India, and it’s lesser known aspects. It’ll be interesting to share it :]
15 november, De Balie, Leidse Plein, Amsterdam. Info: De Balie
It took me about a week and a half to film. Editing took an other week. Big part was actually getting the voice over in with the subtitles.
This version is in French. A version with English subtitles of English voice should follow soon.
The idea of the movie
The original idea when I was in India was to make a short documentary about tribals and the way it contrasts with Indian cities. I think tribals and cities are two faces people tend not to know about India. When people think about India, they think about colorful sari’s, hindu rituals, holi men, full trains etc.
India has a lot of nice thinks but I was amazed by the Indian cities. Not by their overcrowdedness -which I think is relatively ok- but by their (air)pollution. And also how the environment is mistreated.
The other surprise I had in India, were the existence of tribes. When I hear ‘tribes’ I think about Latin-America, Southern-Asia, Africa, but not India. So I wanted to know more about them.
I got in touch with Stephan of the NGO Telluris through a friend of his I met in Delhi, and we agreed to meet and try to make a documentary about the tribes and their cause. The tribals are not treated well by Indian officials and sometimes it leads to rebellion. Telluris tries to help the tribals -the munda in this case- for three years. They are doing pretty well but need a lot more funding. So I thought it would be a good idea to show people how the tribes live, show the good work of Telluris so that people can make their own mind up about giving some money.
I was really amazed by how the munda live and are as human beings. I was a nice welcome to be away from electricity what so ever and to sleep under the stars in a very nice looking clay house. All the appliances are self made, mostly from wood. Everything is done by hand. I was so nice waking up among the animals, the hills and the trees.
The munda are always busy working yet they are such a friendly, hospitable and welcome people. I had such a nice time with them, it made me warm seeing the again editing the material.
A great memory for the rest of my life.
Going to the tribal villages on motor bike gives one a full appreciation of the surroundings. As peaceful it is in the villages – especially at night- as hectic it is outside near the bigger cities. Never a dull moment in India. Funny how that lady hops out at the last minute too…
