LAMAKAAN LECTURE SERIES
presents
Screening of the movie
Cotton for My Shroud (2011)
Directed by: Nandan Saxena & Kavitha Bahl Duration: 90 mins.
Screening followed by Q & A session and discussion with Agrarian Expert B Ramakrishna Rao
About the topic: Following a U.S. cimplant to the World Trade Organization, India had to open its doors to foreign seed companies. Within a few years, multinational corporations had taken over India's seed market in a number of major crops. Now only GM seeds are available at the shops, requiring India's farmers to pay an annual royalty. The GM seeds are much more expensive; they need additional fertilizers and insecticides and must be re-purchased every season. While large farms have prospered, the majority of farmers find it increasingly more difficult to make a living off their land.
Farmers, not just in Maharashtra but elsewhere, from formally self-sustaining communities, are being systematically forced into suicide by their mounting debts imposed by multinational companies. So many lives lost in the same community cannot be simply a series of suicides, it is a genocide. Yet the enormity of these preventable deaths has been overlooked by politcians and by the press. The film subsequently questions what the value of a life is. How is it possible that one life could be considered more valuable than another?
Synopsis of the movie: Cotton for My Shroud Cotton for my Shroud investigates the ongoing farmer suicide crisis in India and the culpability of the multinational Monsanto and the Indian government. It examines the strategy of multinational corporations to control seed supply, and corrupt politicians' willingness to help in this second colonisation of India. India 2011 Directors: Nandan Saxena, Kavita Bahl Producers: Kavita Bahl Language: Marathi and English. English subtitles, Hindi Awards Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus) Award for the Best Investigative Film at National Film Awards, 2011. Gold Award for Script, Awards for Excellence, Indian Documentary Producers' Association, 2011.
Brief note about The directors: Nandan Saxena and Kavita Bahl work in the genres of documentary and poetry films. Their oeuvre spans ecology, livelihoods, development and human rights. Both completed their Masters Degree in English Literature from the University of Delhi in 1991 following this with a course in journalism. Kavita went on to work as a journalist for a national newspaper 'The Indian Express' for six years and Nandan worked in television news and current affairs programmes. In 1996 they founded 'Top Quark Films' and started working as independent film makers. Their films explore peoples' relationship with their environment through many windows- cultural, political and anthrobotanical.About the expert: D.V. Ramakrishna Rao is an agriculture graduate. He worked for fertilizer and seed companies. He then quit that job and worked for organic farming organization. Now he is into journalism. He is well-versed with agrarian crisis and farmer suicides and alternative ways for farmer and eco-friendly agriculture.
Entry free