HAVE YOU SEEN THE ARANA?

HAVE YOU SEEN THE ARANA?
DIRECTOR /   Sunanda Bhat
Country:India
Year:2012
Runtime:85min

In a world that has grown more dynamic and uncertain, where diversity and differences make way for standardization and uniformity, the film explores the effects of a rapidly changing landscape on people’s lives and livelihoods. Set in Wayanad, part of the fragile ecosystem of the western mountain range in South India, the film takes you on a journey through a region that is witnessing drastic transformation in the name of ‘development’.

A woman’s concern over the disappearance of medicinal plants from the forest, a farmer’s commitment to growing traditional varieties of rice organically and a cash crop cultivator’s struggle to survive amidst farmers’ suicides, offer fresh insights into shifting relations between people,knowledge systems and environment.

Interwoven into contemporary narratives is an ancient tribal creation myth that traces the passage of their ancestors across this land, recalling past ways of reading and mapping the terrain.

As hills flatten, forests disappear and traditional knowledge systems are forgotten, the film reminds us that this diversity could disappear forever, to be replaced by monotonous and unsustainable alternatives.

WON AWARD FOR THE BEST DOCUMENTARY  AT THE SIGNS FESTIVAL, 2013, TRIVANDRUM.
 
 Sunanda Bhat has been making documentaries and short films since 1995, under the banner
Songline Films. Her interest in documentaries is to represent people living on the margins of
a fascinatingly intricate and stratified Indian society. Unraveling these layers reveal glimpses of
lives that are often far more interesting than fiction.
`Let`s make it right` about rural sanitation won the `Gold Drop` award at the International Water and
Film Events 2012 at Marseilles, France. Her first documentary `Bol Ayesha Bol (Speak Ayesha
Speak)` was screened at IDFA, 1998. Her other films are `Athani to Dusseldorf` on the transformation
of leather crafts people from artisans to entrpreneurs; `Nalai Nammadai (Tomorrow is ours)` on
micro enterprise; and `Yoga as therapy`, a series of 14 films on Yoga for stress related illnesses.