Slovakian scholar Peter Sutoris decodes India's reel concerns

S.N.S. Sastry's I Am 20 in which Indians born in 1947 were interviewed on the occasion of their (and the country's) 20th birthday

Having rummaged through some several hundred films archived at the Films Division of India, based at Peddar Road, scholar and documentary filmmaker Peter Sutoris observes that documentary filmmaking can be compared to many of the technologies introduced in India during the British colonial rule. And, like the language of the coloniser, what was once used by the Empire to muster public support for World War II, documentaries soon became the visual ammo used by nationalists. Soon, those like Shyam Benegal, Mani Kaul, Mrinal Sena and Vidhu Vinod Chopra worked on Films Division (FD) projects as students before shooting to fame.

Slovakian-born Sutoris' book Visions of Development delves into 250 government-sponsored documentaries made by FD between 1948 and 1975. On September 21, Sutoris will present his research to Mumbai audiences at the Godrej India Culture Lab, Vikhroli. Sutoris, a Gates scholar based at the University of Cambridge, visited Mumbai a dozen times in the last six years for his research. "The documentary landscape has changed substantially. Documentaries were shot on celluloid, and film stock was rationed. Nowadays many people can make films using little more than a smartphone. Access to filmmaking equipment has become much more democratic," writes Sutoris over email. "At the same time, however, it has become difficult to get funding for documentary films. Another challenge to filmmakers active in the present day is getting their work distributed and widely seen. In the days of Films Division, cinemas were required to screen government-sponsored films prior to main features, which meant that the films received wide circulation and many people all over India saw them," he continues.

A Gates scholar, Peter Sutoris will speak at the Godrej India Culture Lab, Vikhroli, about documentaries made by FD between 1948 and 1975

Ahead of his talk in the city, we asked Sutoris to choose documentary films from each decade between 1948 to 1970 that captured the spirit of filmmaking and development in India:

1940s
Films made in India in the 1940s were concerned with World War II and building up public support for the war, which was quite unpopular in India. Some films tried to increase public support by showcasing optimistic visions of the future. One example is ‘Conquest of the Drylands' which showed that after defeating the enemies in war, other enemies - such as drought, poverty, famine - needed to be conquered as well.

1950s
One of the longest and most ambitious animated films produced by the Cartoon Film Unit, Shadow and Substance, aimed to convince cinema-goers of the virtues of five-year plans. In this film, an alien from outer space periodically visits a farmer in rural India, and together they fly over the country in the alien's space ship, observing progress in various areas of development. The government was trying to convince citizens that they should not complain about their living standards, but put the country's interests ahead of their own.

Films for the adivasis in 1960s
One of the most poignant examples of an FD film about Adivasis is ‘That Inheritance - This Progress," which was released into theatrical circulation in 1965. The film portrayed a total transformation in Adivasi villages taking place as a result of government's intervention but did not show any Adivasi perspectives on these transformation: it simply presented the government's point of view.

Gender in the 1960s
In Pramod Pati's animated ‘Wives and Wives', a young man walks into a "marriage bureau" in an effort to choose his future spouse. He compares two potential candidates: one is a woman who enjoys shopping and who would, in the film's perspective, spend all the money earned by her husband. The second woman is, one the other hand, "thrift personified," in the words of the film's commentary. She grows food at home, repairs old clothing and saves money in order to educate children. She does not have any political power and does not have any opinions on matters other than the immediate needs of the household. This view of gender was characteristic of earlier colonial-era films.

Outliers from the 1960s
One film that recently gained some recognition in the Indian media is S.N.S. Sastry's ‘I Am 20'. This was an "interview film" in which a number of Indians born in 1947 were interviewed on the occasion of their (and the country's) 20th birthday. This film is remarkable in several ways. Apart from its innovative approach which allowed the audiences to meet real-life characters rather than merely listen to the commentator's voice (as was the standard FD format), the film was one of the first documentaries produced by FD that contained traces of criticism of the government. While some of the young people interviewed in the film were optimistic about India's prospects, many were disillusioned by the lack of progress in important areas. The film was also entertaining and funny, another novelty among FD films from this period.