Arsenic-affected children in Malda in the film; (below) Mandal with the award

What happens when a power sub-station employee hailing from a far corner of Midnapore takes a fancy to the moving picture? Certainly not a full-fledged documentary film; not a National Award; nor invitations from international film festivals.

All of that has happened in the case of Dhananjoy Mandal. And more. For his film on arsenic contamination, A Silent Killer, has just bagged an international award as well ? the special jury prize at the 10th International Environmental Film Festival - Green Vision, in Russia.

A certificate and a crystal trophy in hand, the soft-spoken operating personnel at the State Electricity Board?s Uluberia sub-station recounts his childhood days in Khorai village, a good 60 km from Kharagpur. ?Movies were banned in my childhood. Anyway, the nearest hall was 15 km away.? So his first tryst with the big screen was when he came to Calcutta to study chemistry. ?I became interested in the medium and started looking up books on film-making at National Library where I went for studies.? A short course on movie-making introduced him to Gautam Ghose and Mrinal Sen as teachers.

Mandal?s first attempt at film-making was an aborted one after two days of shooting in the Sunderbans. ?But it gave me the confidence that films could be made.?

Though he concedes that all this would not have been possible if he could not shift to Calcutta, his rural roots came in handy during his debut. ?A clothes merchant in my home block Sabang agreed to produce my first film, based on the mat industry in Midnapore. It?s a different matter that things soured when it took me more than three years to pay him back...? he reflects.

Mandal became aware of the problem of arsenic contamination when he was working on a commissioned film on water, especially how groundwater depletion increases the threat of arsenic.

After touring Malda, Murshidabad, Nadia and the 24-Parganas extensively, his arsenic story was ready to be told in the form of the 23-minute A Silent Killer in 2003. ?In Baruipur, people tried to run away when they saw us asking about arsenic problems on camera. They are fed up of media intrusions which has brought little help to them.?

The film on the luckless got the National Award ?through sheer luck?. ?In 2004, video films were first included in the non-feature film category.? Thereafter, it has been to as many as six countries. ?In Brazil they showed the film on local TV.? But other than in Iran, he could not attend any of the screenings. ?I cannot afford the airfare,? he says.

His village has given him a felicitation; his colleagues are happy with the international recognition. But his own sights are already set on his next project, on erosion in the Ganga.