By Uma Da Cunha
The London-based Satyajit Ray Foundation has announced "CITY OF WIDOWS" as winner of the 2007-2008 Award for the Best Short Film screened at the London Film Festival which best reflects Ray’s exceptional cinematic presentation of life’s human concerns. The £1,500 prize money was presented to Purnima Raghunath, the Director of the film, by Ben Gibson, Director of The London Film School.
The 26-minute short, The City Of Widows, made in the DV format, is based in the sacred pilgrim city of Vrindavan, which is home to more than 16,000 abandoned widows. Deserted by their families or relatives who no longer want them, these women come to Vrindavan, near Delhi, and spend the rest of their lives singing bhajans in praise of Lord Krishna. Deemed by ancient Hindu texts as unlucky or “inauspicious”, they are seen as socially untouchable. Forbidden to re-marry, they renounce life’s comforts and withdraw from society, dressing in white as a symbol of their mourning.
© 2008 The Satyajit Ray FoundationFrom newly-weds and mothers in their prime to elderly women who can barely walk, these women live a hand-to-mouth existence with the constant fear of sexual exploitation and physical abuse, depending on alms for their daily existence.
Director Raghunath examines the reasons for the survival of this brutal tradition in modern India. She meets diverse characters among the widows themselves, as well as other people entwined in their lives, who talk of their unspoken degradation. Her film raises questions that resonate universally on the subject of tradition, religion and society in a transforming world.
Filmmaker Raghunath has scripted, edited and directed The City Of Widows, which marks her debut as a filmmaker. While the film’s cinematography is mainly by Vincent, Raghunath and Praveena Shivram provided additional camerawork. Its music is by Nick Sanett, while Rhona Nolasco has handled its voice direction.
Delhi-raised Raghunath completed a post graduate Mass Media course from Mumbai’s Sophia College in 2003. She then worked at Miditech, one of Asia’s leading independent production houses, on television programmes on subjects as polarised as fashion, cars, science and maternal responsibility. She worked as an Associate Producer on the UNICEF-funded documentary A Long Road Ahead, which dealt with the high rate of maternal mortality in the north-western Indian state of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, which was telecast on national news channels such as NDTV and Doordarshan. She was an Associate Producer on BBC World’s 7-part series, Call Centre, an exclusive behind-the-scene series looking at the growing Indian service industry, filmed in an observational reality format.Raghunath has worked as an Assistant Producer for Doordarshan’s Science of India, which explored scientific traditions in India from ancient times in various aspects of life such as general science, medicine, architecture and art; and for BBC World’s Wheels, the award-winning weekly automobile show for car and bike enthusiasts. She contributed to Star World’s Style, a weekly show that told India what was in and what was out, be it in fashion, interiors or in your wardrobe. She dealt with reality shows as an Edit Assistant Producer on MTV-India’s Roadies, about a 40-day road trip by seven youngsters, capturing their tears, laughter, love, fear on camera.Raghunath moved to London in 2006 to take her Masters degree from Brunel University.
The City Of Widows, her dissertation film, won a grant at the 2007 One World Broadcasting Trust Bursary enabling her to travel to India on its three-month research and subsequent filming. She has since worked in London in the TV industry as a freelance shooting Assistant Producer, and worked for BBC 3’s feature-length documentary series World’s Strictest Parent, on parenting cultures in different parts of the world.
“It has been a huge encouragement for me to win the Ray award”, says Raghunath. “I have always loved Satyajit Ray’s films and to be recognised by a foundation that celebrates his style of filmmaking has been very heartening. The City Of Widows is my first independent half-hour film and this award tells me that I am on the right path.”
©2008: Indian Express Newspapers (Mumbai) Ltd.
