A Special Film - Behind the Scenes of 7 Lives

A couple of years ago filmmaker Runjiv Kapur told me about a heartbreaking incident in north India. A young girl had been shot and brought into a reputed hospital 'brain dead'. The girl's parents, as can be imagined, were overwhelmed and devastated. The hospital authorities were aware of the sensitive situation and yet they could not let go of the opportunity to help people who were desperately in need of organ transplants.

They approached the grief-stricken parents and requested them to consider donating her organs. That one decision could help give a new lease of life to seven people. The window of opportunity was short -- as the transplants needed to happen within a few hours of brain death.

The parents found it in their hearts to overcome their personal loss and willingly agreed to donate their child's organs. The processes were put in place. The hospital went ahead with the procedures but at the eleventh hour some community leaders came to know of this and raised objections on the grounds of religion and tradition.

This is the heartbreaking reality of India, ostensibly modern, and yet caught up with medieval values. While researching the story, I talked to a heart surgeon who specializes in transplants and he sadly pointed out that organ donations, even in the big metros, is rare. 7 Lives, a short film based on this true story, is an effort to create awareness about the important subject of organ donation.

It's a very special film for me also for the fact that it is my first produced screenplay. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to bring this issue to light. The film is being screened at the Kolkata International Film Festival, 2018 today and has been honored with a Special Jury Award at the 7th Delhi Shorts International Film Festival, 2018.

Here's hoping that the film will touch more lives and bring about a change in mindsets.

Comments

Basu Chatterji's "Balcony Class" Films

Basu Chatterji's Rajnigandha was like a breath of fresh air in the 1970s film universe of Bombay. At a time when the Angry Young Man was beginning to dominate celluloid screens, Amol Palekar was as un-hero-like as you could get. He was the Common Man who traveled in buses, did not have hero-like mannerisms and did not breathe fire and brimstone at his opponents. Basu Chatterji's Middle of the Road Cinema burst on to the scene and surprised the movie-going audience with its everyday situations and storylines that had an undercurrent of humour. Chatterji catered to an audience that he liked to call the "Balcony Class". Anirudha Bhattacharjee, author of Basu Chatterji and Middle-of-the-Road Cinema writes an entertaining and heartwarming account of the life and work of Basu Chatterji, one of the most under-rated directors of Indian cinema. Recall of Chatterji's brand of feel-good, slice-of-life movies is perhaps highest for his Rajnigandha, Chotisi Baat, Baaton Baa...

Marching in the Dark - a true story of grit and resilience

"Nothing can dim the light that shines from within." I was reminded of this quote by Mary Angelou as I watched Kinshuk Surjan's documentary feature film titled "Marching in the Dark" . The film is an evocative tribute to the widows of Marathwada who have survived the suicides of their husbands - the men driven to despair and eventually death after years of failing harvests, rising debts and the cruel play of climate change. Surjan introduces us to Sanjeevani, an every woman who is not anyone's idea of a hero. If anything she is a victim - of her circumstances, of the unfair deal that she has got in life and of a male-oriented world that she is part of. But she has a quiet strength to her that is evident from the first time we meet her. She is grappling with grief and the burden of raising two small children after the suicide of her husband. She is a breadwinner as well as a homemaker. She works in her brother-in-law's farm who has given her family sh...

Facing my fear - one Pitch at a time

Pitching makes me freeze up. In fact, the very thought of it makes me wanna run away. For a screenwriter that's simply bad news. Because no matter what, if you want to get your stories out of your computer and hit the big screens, then you need to get comfortable with selling your story to potential producers and studios. And the first step in that journey is pitching. My fear of pitching has prodded me to find different ways of overcoming the hurdle. So, for a few years I tried to work with agents in the hope that they would read my book and be able to handle the job of pitching. But soon I realized that agents were not into reading. So, I was just another name in their long list of clients. How that helps them grow their business is a different story, and one that I will perhaps share at a later point when I get around to solving that mystery! But the turning point (life does imitate screenplays!) came when I was called to pitch my book to a prominent OTT channel. This was...

Adventures of a Writer

Search This Blog