Documentary Educational Resources - Filmmaker / Sandall, Roger / All Films

Tragada Bhavai

Mon, 27 Aug 2018 08:57:00 GMT

Bhavai is the traditional rural theater of Gujarat. Today, there are only a few troupes of Bhavai performers in India. This film follows one group as it travels throughout the countryside, performing in villages for audiences of the poor Koli caste. Audience and performers are entirely male, and actors impersonate female roles.

A typical Bhavai evening includes a miracle play, comic skits, dances and juggling and, finally, a romantic drama set in medieval times. The film shows "backstage" preparations, negotiations with sponsoring villagers, interviews with actors and the troupe leader, as well as the performance itself.

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A Zenana

Fri, 24 Aug 2018 12:25:00 GMT

A Zenana
Buy Now: $320.00

In India, the most secluded section of the palace was the zenana, or women's quarters. Here, until recently, palace women lived behind protective walls and brass doors firmly shut at night.

This film is an account of women's life in the Dhrangadra, in northern India, the seat of power of the Jhala Rajputs from the 11th century A.D. until 1947. The film unfolds through songs, dances, and stories of several palace women, including the Maharani (wife of the Maharaja), who is the mother of one of the filmmakers. She and others reflect upon traditional women's roles, the strictness of their former seclusion, and the ideals of women's purity and inner strength.

“Of particular interest is the Maharani's account of how she left PURDAH (seclusion) in 1967 to help her husband, H.H. Sriraj Meghrajji III, contest state election, and how she too was persuaded to run for office in 1971. One notices how in a photograph of her on that occasion the tail of her SARI passes over the left shoulder in the popular fashion, rather than over the right shoulder in the parochial manner of the Zenana...”
— Paul Hockings, American Anthropologist

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The Bharvad Predicament

Thu, 26 Jul 2018 09:36:00 GMT

The Bharvad Predicament
Buy Now: $320.00

Bharvad cattle herdsmen have been nomadic pastoralists for centuries. This film presents the conflict that has arisen between the local, landholding Kanbi farmers and the Bharvad in Dhrangadhra, western India. They are in the midst of a particularly dry season and competition for the available land and water resources has escalated producing a state of tension between the farmers and the herdsmen. The farmers appear to be supported by the government while the Bharvad are tolerated as a quaint but relatively unimportant political entity. The history of the relationship between the farmers and the pastoralists is reviewed in depth and both points of view are represented. This film clearly demonstrates the influences that geography, natural resources and governmental policies have on the survival of particular ethnic groups and cultures.

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