Remembering Chalam Bennurkar

Remembering Chalam Bennurkar

Film screening and interaction

On 28th May, Sunday from 4 pm onwards;

At Maniyammai Arangu, Periyar Thidal, Chennai

Organized by MARUPAKKAM and Periyar Self Respect Media

Films:

1) All About Our Famila
2) Kutty Jappanin Kuzhanthaigal

Guest speakers:

Poarkodi Natarajan, asst. professor
Amshan Kumar, filmmaker
Pralayan, playwright / director
RV Ramani, filmmaker
RR Srinivasan, filmmaker
Ajayan Bala, writer
Pon Sudha, filmmaker

We welcome you all!

Kutty Japanin Kuzhandaigal
Children of Mini Japan

Tamil Sub titled in English
Duration: 60 min, colour

Production: Janamadhyam
Script and Direction: Chalam Bennurakar
Cinematography: R V Ramani
Audiography: Suresh Rajamani
Editing: Jacob Thottathil, Amitabh Chakraborthy

Synopsis : Sivakasi is a small town in Southern Tamilnadu. It is from here and the surrounding villages that 70% of the requirements of the match box industry and 90% of the fireworks industry are produced.

The owners of the match box and fireworks factories proudly refer to their town as “Mini Japan” , a self-employed town. This town also prints millions of garish calendars and elction posters which are used all over India.

Sivakasi has another dubious distinction. It is the single largest concentration of child labour in the world. Nearly 100,00 children, mostly girl children, are employed in Sivakasi to meet the demands of production.

It is these children aged between 4 and 16 who are the protagonists of the film,

The film is an attempt to portray the dailiness of their, the production process and the complex socio-political reasons that contribute to such a large employment of children in this area.

Without taking recourse to voice over commentary, the film tries to weave together various episodes by interspersing Villupadal, a traditional performance which celebrates the childhood of Krishna. It is the Villupadal which forms the edifice of the film’s critique of post independent India’s “tryst with destiny” - a nightmare called progress through rapid industrialization.

The filmmaker: Chalam Bennurakar was a college dropout and worked as a signboard painter for some time before he became part of CIEDS Collective and Vimochana in Bangalore.

He was a deeply passionate and intense person and straddled the world of politics, literature, theatre and cinema, locally, nationally and internationally.

As part of CIEDS Collective, he had initiated Janamadhyam, a screening network and production infrastructure for grassroot action which he continued informally even after he left the Collective through Touring Talkies.

He contributed to the film society movement in Bangalore through the Bangalore Film Society and Odessa in Kerala by creating a space for young film makers to show case their work. Sakshi, was a first of a kind initiative that he started in 1998 to showcase work on documentaries all over the world and create a platform for Independent Documentary Film Makers in India.

Chalam is well known for his literary writings in different genres – short stories, essays, poems, translations which have been published in journals and magazines, the recent being 2 essays from Asking, We Walk: the south as new political imaginary ed by Corinne Kumar and published by Kuvempu Basha Bharti.

Chalam Bennurkar Filmography

1. Kutty Japanin Kuzhandaigal (Children of Mini Japan) – on Child Labour in Sivakasi
2. On Latur – the Earthquake Disaster in Latur, Maharashtra
3. All About My Famila – on the Transgender Community
4. Naavu Yeravaru - on the Yerava Community

5. Short Poetic Films on Women and Development; on Women against War for Peace; on Women in Prostitution; on Dowry and Related Forms of Violence; on Trafficking; on HIV and AIDs; on US War Crimes et al
(for the Courts of Women – an initiative of Corinne Kumar)

6. Bishaar Blues - on the Fakirs of Calcutta 
( Co produced and worked with Amitabh Chakraborthy)

7. Work in Progress Film – 
* On the Dongri Garsias
* On the Burns Survivors for Vimochana, a forum for women’s rights

Dollar City - Review by Sujata Mody

RP Amudhan’s Dollar City : A Review

“Art is not a mirror with which to reflect reality but a hammer with which to shape it.”

- Bertolt Brecht

“Dollar City”, P R Amudhan’s 77-minute documentary is a story woven through the alleyways of Tirupur, the hub of Tamil Nadu’s garment industry. Through the stories of people whose lives depend on the garment factories it raises questions about a development model based on industrial production for the global market, but which has little concern for the lives of those who do the producing. Dollar City makes you think, question and connect to the people from slums and villages, homes, factories and trade union offices who are real and present throughout the film.

The film was screened at the South India Training College Hall in Chingleput on July 24^th, for garment workers, union activists and members who came to celebrate the High Court Order that upheld a Government Order hiking minimum wages for garment workers..

The documentary revealed the enormous power wielded by the garment industry, the abominable conditions in which factory workers live and work in Tirupur, the gross indifference of owners, the continuing silence on the pollution of the Noyal River, the urban squalor and poverty in Tirupur town. And, while doing all this, the film raises questions about the silence of people to systemic violence and oppression.

Amudhan, the director, grapples with the quality of silence of working people and their acquiescence in their oppression. On the surface there appears to be a consensual relationship between the factory owners and their employees. But what the film shows us is the perennial disconnect between the official and the everyday. Ganesan, a factory owner proudly displays a pet fish valued at fifty thousand rupees, constrained in in a small aquarium, which he sees as a totem of his success in the industry. But, on the other side, the camera chronicles  lives of  contract labour and regular workers employed  on 12-hour- a-day-company-shifts, home based workers, supervisors, aspiring owners of garment factories, the small and big  owners of export units and  communist party leaders and trade unionists speaking at the May Day celebration. 

Mylama, about 60 years old, a cobbler’s daughter recalls happy moments while growing up in her native village - when her father brought home left-overs from the landlords feast.  But there was no dignity in the village, she says. She speaks of coming to Tirupur, and what change this town has brought for her and her clan. With stoic pride she says that now her grandchildren are tailors. In another frame, a lone elderly woman weaver works on her old wooden loom late into the night, preserving a dying tradition of the weft and warp, labouring at her own pace and in dignity and peace. Red flags and May Day speeches with which the film starts and finishes are very far away from this world.

As the camera weaves through the alleyways of Tirupur, Amudhan explicitly looks for Gramscian explanation to the silent acquiescence of the oppressed, their acceptance of the dominant ideology of development and profit, not by force or inducement, but “for reasons of their own”. Amudhan seeks to identify these “reasons of their own” and treats the documentary as a tool to understand and change the situation, question those who speak oblivious of the realities and hold a mirror to the present day trade unionists.

GaFWU activists from Chennai reacted to the film unequivocally, saying that the Tirupur workers appeared to be much worse off than them.  In Chennai they were able to resist twelve hour shifts. One of the workers in the audience said he resigned from his job as he was asked to work on Sundays. Another worker spoke of the need to educate Tirupur’s workers about their rights, as they had no security and no social life as they even worked on Sundays.

The film, which shows us the world of garment workers in Tirupur, also willy nilly explains the context of our struggle to raise minimum wages in in the Chennai region.  Kesavan, a garment factory worker in Madras Export Processing Zone, said, “we were able to get the government to revise the wages upward, by persistent petitioning, campaigning and agitation in the Chennai region. But, we were up against  560 factory owners who contested the wage rise and most of whom are from Tirupur. Since 1978, the garment industry has repeatedly used its power, money and even misused constitutional privileges to keep workers at poverty level wages, forcing them to work overtime and 10-12 hour shifts, often without the statutory weekly day off.”

Kesavan says that employers claim to ‘natural justice’ is hypocritical as they are the ones to bend laws in their favour, use political influence to change policies and resort to trade union bashing. ‘No one can believe that the industry did not know about the wage revision. Workers may not know as it is not published in popular media. However, are employers as ignorant as workers? Apparel manufacturers have consistently the Public Interest litigation route – the writ petition – to preserve their individual and collective right to business and profit and prevent workers from getting even a minimum wage. Is this natural justice?”

The Garment and Fashion Workers Union (GAFWU) that screened Amudhan's film is an independent trade union, led by women workers, waged a long battle to hike in minimum wages in the export garment industry. However, in December of 2014 when Government of Tamil Nadu issued an order to raise the minimum wage by 30 percent, about 560 employers garment factory owners went to the High Court and got  a stay order on the government notification. Though there is a sufficient body of case law that could have been used to set aside the management driven writ petitions, and it would have saved workers, government and courts huge resources that were used to deal with these 560 cases.  All petitions carrying  the same arguments, same wording and with same lawyer were admitted even though similar petitions had been ruled as frivolous in 2010 and 2012 by the same court.  

During the court hearing Justice Ramesh asked the counsel for the management as to why they come to the court, instead they could have used the statutory two month period between the preliminary and final government notification to give their suggestions and objections. The management senior counsel sheepishly admitted that he as the advocate had failed to advice the management in time.Once the cases were instituted, the High Court used its better judgement in allowing the employers to be heard and gave an order upholding the GO, except that this order took 18 months to come.  GAFWU led by women workers, is the only trade union to have fought the long battle to hike in minimum wages in the export garment industry. Coincidently, Amudhan’s film vindicates the experience of womenthat the trade unions are disengaged from the reality of the situation and like the employers expect workers to adhere to rules they set for them.

In Dollar City, Tirupur Exporters Association(TEA) are shown to be proud that there has been no strike since 1980 and that the bipartite agreements between employers and trade unions has ensured industrial peace. Ironically, TEA also claims to be working in national interest, and at the same time they seem oblivious to the caged voices to workers.  This strikes a resonance with arguments of  A L Somayaji, Advocate General of Tamil Nadu who argued on behalf of the government before the Madras High Court, “the petitioners having not paid the minimum wages since the enactment of the Act(for tailoring workers in 1978), the petitioners should be fastened with the liability of paying interest along with penal interest for their act of trying to dislodge a social welfare legislation.

Dollar City vindicates the protracted struggle of Chennai’s garment workers for a fair wage. Tirupur exporters used the ‘natural justice’ argument in and out of court to stall implementation of social welfare legislation with impunity. The garment union activists watching the film could see the power and resources of those they are up against.  The TEA by its admissionhas had access to all the Prime Ministers, it receivesawards for entrepreneurship and trade, is able to bargain for tax subsidies and influence labour law reform in favour of its members. On the other hand workers appear fragmented, trade unions only visible at the ritual May Day meetings and red flags symbolise gruelling poverty and pain, not struggle and power.

After the film, Chokkammal, a GaFWU leader spoke of the battles on the shop-floor, day to day struggle for dignity. Rani an ironing worker repeatedly raised her fear that the minimum wage would not be implemented. Nithya, at a factory workers from an interior village in Thirukalikundram said, we find it impossible to deal with ‘torturous harassment, not being allowed to use toilets, fear of the stoppage of transport to and from work, and not knowing where to take our complaints. Mary spoke of her long illness and how systematically the company denied her claim the medical leave benefit. In the GaFWU meeting workers were speaking about wages, social security, their rights at work, infringement of their dignity by supervisors, in stark contrast to the muted voices from Tirupur.

None of the garment workers interviewed in the film spoke of their difficulties. Ironically, even those who worked on Sundays after an uncompromising 12-hour shift felt obligated to the employer. Yet, the film in a manner of speaking pulls off the invisible gag on the mute unquestioning social order that underpins the Indian garment industry. Dollar City unwrapped the continuing myth of entrepreneurship, progress and development, and counter poses the grinding poverty of working people in Tirupur with culturally deracinated lives devoid of a basic social exchange or leisure. And it parodied the dominant public opinion that Tirupur employers are patriotic, industrious and enterprising, as the viewer can see on whose labour and sacrifice foreign trade and foreign exchange are built on...

RP Amudhan’s film, Dollar City is anhonest document of the alienation of workers at bottom of the end of a global supply chain. It comes at an important juncture when the Indian Government is dismantling its minimalist labour regulation to make it attractive for foreign investors and promote ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill India’. The film captures the caged, captive and suppressed voices of working people telling us that they too are present and have an experience to share.

Even as the film-maker despairs at the silent majority, the narrative draws us back to the small acts of resistance. The film takes you to other sites in Tirupur - striking power-loom workers, the boy-worker who refused to return to a violent job, the handloom workers who struggle to keep their livelihood against all odds…these other voices resonate in my mind and confirm that varied struggles are challenging the profit model of the Tirupur and also their cultural hegemony over ideas of economic development, poverty and profit.

Sujata Mody

President

Garment and fashion Workers Union (NTUI)

August 25, 2016

OPEN SESAME - International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2011

OPEN SESAME
International Documentary & Short Film Festival
On Development, Culture and Human Rights

Jointly organised by
MARUPAKKAM
&
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

On 27, 28 August 2011; Central Lecture Theatre, IIT, Madras


Dr.Rajan Kurai, Film Scholar Inaugurates.
Mr.V.M.Subhagunarajan, writer
Mr.Kavitha Muralidharan, journalist/writer
& Mr.Ajaya Bala Siddharth felicitate.

Inaugural film:
Zanzibar Musical Club
Dir: Philippe Gasnier and Patrice Nezan; 85 min; Swahili with English subtitlesSynopsis: At sunset in the streets of the ancient old town, the musical clubs of Zanzibar, whose style reflects two millennium of cultural exchange and the island’s place at the crossroads of the spice route. Vehicle of cultural identity and living tradition, the performance of Taarab is intrinsically linked to both the ceremonial and everyday life of the island. Its gentle rhythms accompany the listener on every step of existence-from the most solemn to the most blissful moments.ZANZIBAR MUSICAL CLUB is an invitation to explore a millenary Muslim culture where traditions are transmitted through music; to go deep into a reality where music is the social link par excellence; to discover a world fed with Arabic tones, Latin rhythms, Indian melodies and African drums. This superb documentary is alive and pulsing with a musical mix of Arabic tones, Latin rhythms, Indian melodies and African drums.
Special guests at the festival:
Ms.Malathi Mythri, writer
Mr.Bava Chelladurai, writer
Mr.Yadharthaa Rajan, film activist
Participate!


All are welcome!

For list of films, synopsis and schedule: www.marupakkam.blogspot.com

Summer Film Festival 2009, Madurai - List of films

Jointly organised by 

MARUPAKKAM

YADHAARTHAA FILM SOCIETY 

and Department of Visual Communication, The American College, Madurai. 

 The following films will be screened on 6,7,8 May 2009 between 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.

 1) NEE YAAR? Director: R.V.Ramani Original Language: Tamil, Malayalam and English Duration: 120 min Category: Documentary Country: India 

2) BONSAI Dir: Roberto Aznar Duration: 20 minutes Language: Spanish Category: short film Country: Spain 

3) LES MIETTES Director: Pierre Pinaud Language: French and an invented language Duration: 30min Section: International Category: Short filmCountry: France 

4) DAWN OF CONSCIOUS Director: Tamil V Selva Language: Tamil Duration: 5 min Category: Short filmCountry: India 

5) BLOOD ON MY HAND Dir: Surabhi Saral, Manak Matiyani and Anandana Kapur Original Language: English Duration: 30 min Category: Documentary Country: India 

6) UNWORLDLY Dir: Vladimir Golovnev Duration: 23 minutes Category: Documentary Language: Russian Country: Russia 

7) NAACH (THE DANCE) Director: Saba Dewan Original Language: Hindi, English sub title Duration: 84min Category: Documentary Country: India 

8) BURNING MEMORIES Dir: Someetharan Duration: 49 minutes Category: Documentary Language: Tamil Country: India 

9) Woman with a Video Camera Dir: Geetha J.Duration: 52 minutes Category: Documentary/docu fiction/or the both, featuring Jyothirmayee and the women of Kerala Language: Music Country: India 

10) Our Family Dir: Anjali Monteiro and K.P.Jayasankar Duration: 56 minutes Category: Documentary Language: Tamil Country: India 

11) EN PEYAR PAALAARU Dir: R.R.Srinivasan Duration: 82 mints Language: Tamil Category: Documentary Country: India 

12) SUR LA TERRE COMME AU CIEL Director: Herve Demers Original Language: French Duration: 21 min Category: Short film Country: Canada 

13) SEPTEMBER Director: Esther/ May/Campbell Original Language: English Duration: 20 min Category: Short film Country: U.K 

14) April 1 Director: Rajan G. Duration: 20 minutes Language: Tamil Category: Short film Country: India 

15) Maraiporul Director: Pon.Sudha Duration: 6 minutes Language: Music Category: Short film Country: India 

16) Mugavarigal Director: Hari Gopi Duration: 12 minutes Language: Music Category: Short film Country: India 

17) BEFORE THE WIND BLOWS Director: Samer Najari Duration: 18 minutes Language: Japanese, Arabic Category: Short film Country: Canada 

18) You asked me to wait Director: Gregory Rentis Duration: 10 minutes Language: Music/silent Category: Documentary Country: Greece 

19) Your’s Truly John Direction: Sarat Chandran Duration: 60 minutes Language: Malayalam/English Category: Documentary Country: India 

20) Devadaigal Direction: Leena Manimekalai Duration: 45 minutes Language: Tamil Category: Documentary Country: India 

21) The Road Direction: Amudhan R.P. Duration: 10 minutes Language: Tamil Category: Documentary Country: India 

22) Riding Solo to the top of the World Direction: Gaurav Jani Duration: 94 minutes Language: English, Hindi Category: Documentary Country: India 

Amudhan R.P. 

festival coordinator Summer Film Festival 2009

Madurai

Summer Film Festival 2009, Madurai

Summer Film Festival - 2009, Madurai
6-8 May 2009; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Venue: The American College, Madurai

Inauguration
6 May 2009; 10 a.m.

Chief Guest: P.Varthini
Little’s Children Centre, Madurai

Inaugural film: “Nee Yaar”
A documentary film on Tamil writer Sundara Ramasamy
Tamil/English
Directed by R.V.Ramani
Director will take part in the discussion following the screening

Felicitation
7 May 2009; 4 p.m.

Chief Guest: Yadhartha Rajan

Felication for Leena Manimekalai, film maker
for winning Golden Conch award at
Mumbai International Film Festival 2008
in the international category

Closing Ceremony
8 May; 4 p.m.

Chief Guest: A. Muthukrishnan, writer

Closing film:
“Your’s Truly John”
Malayalam with English subtitles.
A documentary about filmmaker John Abraham
Directed by Sarat Chandran
Director will take part in discussion following the screening

Organized by
MARUPAKKAM
In association with
Department of Visual Communication, The American College, Madurai
and
YADARTHA FILM SOCIETY

All are welcome.