Have You Seen the Arana?
NINGAL ARANAYE KANDO? | HAVE YOU SEEN THE ARANA?
India | 2012 | 73 minutes | Malayalam with English subtitles.
A film by Sunanda Bhat
In a world that has grown more dynamic and uncertain, where diversity and differences make way for standardization and uniformity, the film explores the effects of a rapidly changing landscape on people’s lives and livelihoods. Set in Wayanad, part of the fragile ecosystem of the western mountain range in South India, the film takes you on a journey through a region that is witnessing drastic transformation in the name of ‘development’.
A woman’s concern over the disappearance of medicinal plants from the forest, a farmer’s commitment to growing traditional varieties of rice organically and a cash crop cultivator’s struggle to survive amidst farmers’ suicides, offer fresh insights into shifting relations between people, knowledge systems and environment.
Interwoven into contemporary narratives is an ancient tribal creation myth that traces the passage of their ancestors across this land, recalling past ways of reading and mapping the terrain.
As hills flatten, forests disappear and traditional knowledge systems are forgotten, the film reminds us that this diversity could disappear forever, to be replaced by monotonous and unsustainable alternatives.
About the Director
Sunanda is a documentary filmmaker based in Bangalore. Her interest is to represent people living in an intricate and stratified Indian society, while looking for ways to bring in textures of landscape through layers of their lives. Her films have won awards at various national and international film festivals besides an extensive series of community screenings. Her film “Have you seen the arana?” was featured at Metropolis Kino, an arthouse cinema theatre in Germany and as opening film of “Cine-debates” at Musee de l’homme in Paris besides being invited to Tisch School of the Arts in New York.
Under the banner Songline Films [songlinefilms.com] she has made several commissioned films on social issues like mobilisation of women farmers working on dry land, transformation of leather artisans to entrepreneurs, importance of sanitation in rural India among others. She was an artist-in-residence at Pepper House Residency, hosted by Kochi Muziris Biennale and a trustee of Vikalp Bengaluru, a collective of filmmakers screening the best in documentary films in the city. She is also a core member of Bitchitra Collective, a network of Indian women and diasporic filmmakers. She is currently working on film projects in Coastal and North Karnataka.