Film Catalogue

This video is a case study of the drinking water schemes in the districts of Jalgaon and Nashik in Northern Maharashtra. It documents the processes and structures which have enabled the institutionalisation of community centred strategies, facilitated at various levels, by the Women's Studies Unit of TISS, Community Participation Consultant to the project. These include aspects such as training of government functionaries, formation of village water committees and the mechanisms for sustainable local participation.

This video traces different aspects - technical, social and economic- of a successfully completed watershed programme in Vadgaon Village in Osmanabad district, Maharashtra. This programme was implemented by the Rural campus of TISS with assistance from NABARD. The video documents the possibility of community involvement (including the participation of marginalized groups such as women) and demonstrates the transformation that take place through this programme.

Uttara Kannada in Karnataka is one of the most densely forested districts in India. Development projects in the district have displaced one out of every ten inhabitants. The film examines livelihood and survival issues of forest dependent communities against the backdrop of this destruction of a fragile and versatile ecosystem in the Western Ghats region, and State interventions towards Joint Forest Management, funded by multi-lateral aid agencies 

The video examines the causes of recurrent drought in Maharashtra, attempting to demonstrate the extent to which drought is a socially created phenomenon, a fall out of ecologically unsound policies and practices, both at micro and macro levels. It includes a brief review of the impact of colonial role and famine policy, as well as the post- independence path of development, premised on the growth of heavy industry, large dams and modernisation of agriculture. This has resulted in deforestation, soil erosion and depletion of ground water reserves, calling for alternative appproaches involving people's participation in integrated watershed management, based on the principles of sustainable development, self-reliance and equity.

MMVS, based in Ajmer and Bhilwara districts of Rajasthan, is a co-ordinating voluntary agency of village committees that have taken up sustainable development of their common property resources based on the principles of contributory voluntary labour and equitable distribution of produce. The video evaluates these efforts in the context of the on-going ecological degradation of the Central Aravallis and governmental initiatives to remedy the situation.

Documents a water cooperative movement of small farmers in a drought-prone block of Maharashtra. In the first part, Pani Panchayat is juxtaposed with the State's promotion of large irrigation projects. The second part is an appraisal of Pani Panchayat and the extent to which it presents an alternative model.

What does it mean to cross that line which sharply divides us on the basis of gender? To free oneself of the socially imposed onus of being male, to liberate the female that lies within? In this film, scenes from Nirvanam, a one person performance in Tamil which explores these questions, are juxtaposed with an intimate portrait of three generations of trans-gendered female subjects, who are all bound together by ties of adoption. In the process, the film questions notions of normality and fixed gender identities

SheWrite weaves together the narratives and work of four Tamil women poets. Salma negotiates subversive expression within the tightly circumscribed space allotted to a woman in a small town. For Kuttirevathi, solitude is a crucial creative space from where her work resonates. Her anthology entitled Breasts (2003) elicited hate mail, obscene calls and threats. The fact that women poets are exploring themes such as desire and sexuality been opposed by some Tamil film lyricists, who have gone on record with threats of death and violence. This has been resisted by a collective of poets and artists called Anangu (Woman). Malathy Maitri is a founder member of Anangu. Her poems explore feminine power and spaces. Sukirtharani writes of desire and longing, celebrating the body and feminine empowerment. The film traverses these diverse modes of resistance, through images and sounds that evoke the universal experiences of pain, anger, desire and transcendence.

Domestic violence is one of the gravest and the most pervasive of human right violations. Yet, there is very little by way of response from the community or the state. For this crime is looked upon as a personal matter, not withstanding the fact that for large number of women this personal matter translates into a life along “adjustment” with torture, both mental and physical. For many, this adjustments end only with the loss of their lives. There have been attempts to mainstream the issue pf domestic violence both by the State and the civil society. This film looks at some of these initiatives of the community and the State aimed at breaking the barriers that divide lives into personal and public.

Based on a workshop with a group of women on the theme of self-image and sexuality, this video expresses women's perceptions of the relationships of power that impinge on women's bodies and their selves. Through a process of sharing and exploration, the group attempts a critique of the dominant modes of power that are immediate to their lives. 2nd prize, Health and Population category, International Video Festival, Thiruvananthapuram, 1995.