A woman patua gives a demonstration of her artistry at a workshop in Calcutta. A Telegraph picture

A film titled Singing Pictures: Women Painters of Naya, on the pata painters of a village in Midnapore, three hours from Calcutta, made by Lina Fruzzetti, Akos Ostor and Aditinath Sarkar, recently won the Material Culture and Archaeology Prize at the ninth Biennial International Ethnographic Film Festival of the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), held this year in Oxford University, between September 19-21.

The prize is one of three major awards in different categories, with one prize awarded in each. In addition, the 41-minute film was selected as the only one to be screened at the annual general meeting of the RAI, held on September 30, in the British Museum.

Recently, the Chitrakar women of Naya village formed a scroll painters? cooperative. The film follows their daily lives as they paint, sing, cook, tend to their children, and meet the cooperative. They discuss the problems and rewards of practising their art, and speak freely about the social, religious, political changes in the village and the world beyond.

Their wisdom, artistry, and good humour, amidst many difficulties, illuminate the lives around them.

The women use commercial paper for the scrolls but still make paint out of organic materials. They are poor, but they try to find new markets and sell their art to middle-class families in Calcutta. In addition to itinerate singing, they augment their income by selling scrolls to urban buyers and government sponsors for campaigns on adult literacy, social welfare and public health. They also participate in juried handicraft competitions in Midnapore and Calcutta.

Their scrolls cover a variety of themes, ranging from mythological and religious, social and especially women?s issues, contemporary local and world news.

The more recent themes are communal (Hindu-Muslim) harmony, Joy Bangla (the birth of Bangladesh as a nation), the battle of Kargil, the September 11 disaster of New York, the trams of Calcutta and even the film Titanic.

The film pays special attention to women?s problems, in particular those dealing with control over their own bodies.

The women candidly discuss issues of Islam and birth control, victimisation of women, female education, poverty and work, religious tolerance and intolerance. Some of these ideas are depicted in the scrolls themselves. The film has no voice-over narration but the conversations are subtitled.