Revealing the many facets of people domiciled in a corner of West Bengal state, nestling Bangladesh is the 87-minute documentary Char - The No-Man’s Island.
Directed by Sourav Sarangi this is a multi-national co- production (involving India, Japan, Norway, Italy and England) of a FTII graduate specialised in editing. The movie focuses on how one category of people affected by natural and man-made disasters in West Bengal are denied compensation from the government. And how, their lives have changed forever.
A labour of love and empathy, Char starkly depicts the hopeless lives of a village population who were once self-sufficient land owners. The reason for this being the consequence of the Indian government’s decision in 1975 to construct the Farakka dam across River Ganga.
The dam resulted in changing the course of the leading to the submerging of many such villages, once inhabited by people from Char Island, throwing them into a nebulous zone between two countries and two security establishments -- India and Pakistan.
The screening was followed by the director’s interaction with the audience over the telephone, facilitated by Sumanaspati Reddy, representative of the documentary circle of Hyderabad.
The audience queried about the bold footage related to open rice and medicine smuggling that was was part of the film, between the two countries and the ferrying of cattle across the river for meat in Bangladesh. Sarangi explained that the film was shot in two phases and the work stretched across for more than a decade, beginning in 2002.
The mainland shooting was the one to be completed first in the surrounding towns while the island shoot took them one-and-a-half years to end by 2012.
What comes across even as the unfortunate lot face their miseries squarely is their zeal to live, connect with the outside world and dream of a better future. With loving close-ups of the adolescent boys who are optimistic of their future, Char is an ode to the undying spirit of humankind.
The documentary has been screened close to 70 times in reputed national and international film festivals across Europe, apart from national screenings at festivals in Goa and Kerala.