Saroj Kumar Sahu’s grandmother had lowered him into the Mahanadi when he was seven months old. In his frantic bid to keep his head above water, he had learnt to swim and forged an enduring bond with the river in the process.
However, Sahu’s experience is not unique. Most children of Kusmuda village in Odisha’s Bargarh district learn to swim like that, he said.
“We can catch fish with our bare hands. Older fishermen make their own nets, a craft they learnt long before the advent of Chinese nets. The village is our lifeline and our teacher,” the 34-year-old filmmaker told The Telegraph on the sidelines of the 6th Nadi Utsav at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), which ended on Saturday here.
Sahu’s film Jibnar Jaal (The Net of Life) is part of My River Story documentary film festival at the Nadi Utsav. It documents the life and culture on the banks of the Mahanadi, pivoting at Kusmuda. Sahu, whose previous work has revolved around folk traditions and rural sports, shot the film on handheld mobile and DSLR cameras and edited it.
“The movie has no interviews. It simply features people going about their daily lives along the river, singing songs, talking and shouting in between…. The older fishermen catch fish only as much as they need. They treat the river as their home. I wanted to document this,” Sahu said. The film’s release in Kusmuda was celebrated like a festival.
The annual Nadi Utsav focuses on the multiple ways in which river systems shape lives, landscapes and cultures. Besides film screenings, the festival features discussions on academic work and cultural performances. Of the 36 films selected for the fest, at least six have largely been shot on inexpensive mobile cameras.
Nadi Utsav’s convener Abhay Mishra told this paper: “Well-equipped filmmakers make good quality films, but they may not necessarily have the stories that someone sitting on the banks of a river has. Without compromising on the quality of the content, we choose films without stressing too much on the technology they use.”
Mishra said the IGNCA, under the Union culture ministry, has also been promoting collaborations between puppeteers and filmmakers to produce films on puppetry. “We have achieved good results, and we promote them on social media and film festivals,” he added.
Abdul Rashid Bhat’s Hokarsar — Queen of Wetland also uses a lot of mobile video footage. It tells the story of the degradation of the eponymous wetland on the outskirts of Srinagar and its restoration.
“The film has three protagonists — birdwatcher Rayan Sofi, activist Javed and then divisional commissioner P.K. Pole,” said Bhat, whose previous films on environmental degradation have jolted the government into action.
“Around 155 species of birds have been observed in this wetland. In 2021, the irrigation and flood control department dredged and drained the wetland, creating a 60-foot-deep trench. I visited the wetland several times, and have footage from before and after the restoration,” said Bhat, an engineer who maintains broadcasting equipment at the Kashmir University.
Rajesh Amrohi, the director of Pani, used animation to depict a dystopian world where the earth’s water resources have been greatly depleted and polluted. “I made this film around three and a half years back based on a PowerPoint presentation of former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam that I found online. The film is intentionally a bit scary because when we see the danger of what could happen, the fear prods us
to do something. Although the film is set in 2070, we’re seeing the disasters of climate change now itself,” he said.