Award-winning filmmaker, Gautam Sigdar, this time is
coming out with a story of an Indian village, which remained secret for
centuries and ultimately finds the course of its destiny changed forever after
receiving a visitor. Gautam’s new project Gaon is inspired by the true story of
his own village in Jharkhand, India.
Film
revolves around a secret village called Bharatgaon which was founded by
revolutionaries during British era to save the culture and civilisation of
India. Generations of villagers have upheld the principal rule of Bharatgaon
mandating that no one leave, and as a result, the village has remained secret
and untouched for centuries. The founders believed that the new Western-modeled
civilization emerging within India at the time ran against the human spirit and
would ultimately imprison citizens within unshakable chains of slavery. Their
intention was to save at least one village.
Explaining
the film Gautam says, “This film is inspired by the true story of my village in
Jharkhand, India. Once in this remote and isolated community, villagers
coexisted like members of a large extended family where they maintained a
unique way of life—mellow and harmonious, celebratory and united. With the
passage of time and the evolution of modernity, government and private agencies
alike made inroads into this simple community, throwing open the floodgates of
drastic change which would come to erode the very fabric of village society.
With the arrival of new institutions such as government schools, a police
force, and a banking system, money began pouring in from this wave of
development projects. The village entered a transformatory phase, coming to
possess many of the same amenities found in modern urban centers around the
world. Citizens disengaged from one another, growing progressively private,
limiting interaction, and keeping to themselves and their families. The
agricultural way of life and the traditional spirit of self-sufficiency were
shunned in favor of reliance on government support or the earnings of a single
family member working in the city. With such pervasive change, the very nature
of what the village once was seems to have vanished. Regrettably, so many
villages across India share the same story of erosion”.
Gautam
further adds, “This film is an attempt to pack 200 years of India’s history
into two hours of cinema. Herein, The Village called Bharatgaon, is itself the
protagonist whose character unrecognizably transforms given events transpiring
around and in it. Bharatgaon and lead male character Bharat serve as metaphors
for the state of India, though representing diametrically opposed
interpretations while simultaneously residing within one nation - competing,
confronting, and falling for each other. This film is the outcome of those
encounters”.
Impressed
with Gautam’s story, Aljazeera Media Network has done a documentary on the
making of Gaon which is releasing worldwide this September.
कोई टिप्पणी नहीं:
एक टिप्पणी भेजें