Proposal 3: "A Film for My Unborn" by SUMA JOSSON

Synopsis: A Film for my Unborn

We live in a chemical soup. We are constantly consuming, absorbing them internally as well bombarded from the outside.

It is a study from inside out and the long-term effects on both the environment and the future of the human race.

I will study this through three characters living in India. Ganesh is a farmer living in Yevetmal, Maharastra. Gita who is from a middle class background is in her twenties, living in Mumbai. Lakshmi is from the slums and is pregnant. She lives in Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh. These are real life characters.

Sunita Narain, renowned environmentalist will analyze this issue on a scientific basis which will be comprehensible to the lay person.

The presence of the unborn child that Lakshmi is carrying is felt through the film.

The film will be based on a blood test of these 3 characters.

Through the list of chemicals we reach out to the source of its origin. These test results will be spread throughout the film and will act as the connecting links.

Like for example if endosulphan is traced both in Ganesh and Gita’s blood it can be proved that it is from the chemical that Ganesh sprays on his farm and the residue left in the food which Gita eats.

Ganesh uses fertilizers and pesticides on his farm. Gita who is looking for a husband is using all kinds of cosmetics to make her look more beautiful, Lakshmi the pregnant woman lives close to an industrial area which manufactures pharmaceutical products.

Through the film we get to know the value systems and the way of life of the characters, the propaganda that makes them trust beliefs, products.

For Ganesh it has been a loss of his traditional ways of farming which was organic. Industrial farming relied heavily on chemicals which meant that soil, water, air, food and the people were affected by them.

Gita religiously follows the TV commercials which advertise a range of products. She purchases from flashy shops and tries out various kinds of lipsticks, nail polish, creams, in her effort to beautify herself.

Formaldehyde a cancer causing chemical in Gita can be tracked to the nail polish that she uses. Or Acrylamide to the potato chips that she eats.

Lakshmi lives in an area which is heavily polluted. But her economic inability prevents her from shifting to another place.

How will these chemicals affect the health of the three characters? What are the probable diseases that they can succumb to at a later stage in their lives? How can one prevent them from entering the body and the environment?

Do we redefine progress, modernism or do we continue to walk on the road of consumerism?

Are there any alternatives? Can we make conscious choices? These are the questions that the film will raise.

The film will end with the birth of the baby. All the three characters are present at the delivery. The baby’s blood test will be done and we will come to know the chemicals in his or her blood.

Suma Josson

sumajosson@yahoo.com

91-22-28401605

09969198284  

A Film for my Unborn

Pattancheru

There are three characters: Ganesh a farmer lives in Yevetmal, Maharastra. Gita is from Mumbai and 

Lakshmi lives in Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh.

The film will begin with a visit to the doctor, of these characters. Their blood tests will be taken. 

The results will be analyzed at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) which has a state of art 

laboratory to undertake such tests.

Through the list of chemicals we reach out to the source of its origin. These test results will be spread throughout the film and will act as the connecting links between the various issues that the film is trying to explore.

Lakshmi will be one of the main characters in the film. She is pregnant. She comes from a farming community in Patancheru an area which had plenty of water and good fertile soil before the industries came.

In the late '80s, Patancheru became an industrial area with around 163 industries, of which 107 are pharmaceutical companies. Most of the pharmaceuticals are exported to the U.S.

In the late '80s, Patancheru became an industrial area with around 163 industries, of which 107 are pharmaceutical companies. Most of the pharmaceuticals are exported to the U.S.

It also has pesticides, steel, and chemical industries. The untreated effluents which include heavy metals, chemicals, antibiotics from these industries are released into the water and soil. Lakshmi’s family is unable to farm.

It also has pesticides, steel, and chemical industries. The untreated effluents which include heavy metals, chemicals, antibiotics from these industries are released into the water and soil. Lakshmi’s family is unable to farm.

Lakshmi washes clothes in the stream. When she rinses the clothes in the stream water it is dark brown and has a strange odor. If she bathes in it she gets rashes.

There is a well near her house. She goes there to fetch water for drinking and cooking purposes. She says that there is no other source of drinking water so the family has to consume it.

Lakshmi goes for her regular check ups to her gynecologist.

She speaks of the dreams she has of her baby and hopes that all will go well for her.

She also visits Dr. A. Kishan Rao, who is a physician and has a clinic Yashodhara Hospital in Patancheru where he has treated people for more than 30 years near the drug factories.

In 1986 he along with the affected communities in Patancheru, formed the Patancheru Anti-Pollution Committee (PAPC).

“Eighty percent of the people here suffer from multi-toxics syndrome,” comments Dr.Kishan Rao. “The medical fraternity has no cure and can’t stop these toxics from entering into the womb of mother. Married women cannot conceive, pregnant women deliver stillborn children and hundreds of cattle die after drinking highly polluted waste water discharged from the industries.”

We follow Lakshmi until she delivers her baby. The baby’s blood samples are taken and tests are done for the 

chemicals present in it.

Ganesh is a farmer who lives in Yevetmal. He has three acres of land in which he mainly grows cotton and other seasonal crops.

He is introduced in the film as he goes for a blood test.

Earlier Ganesh’s father says that they never used chemicals but had traditional methods of farming.

The film follows Ganesh as he goes to a pesticide dealer’s shop. He looks around at the chemicals.

He says that he does not know anything about them but completely trusts the pesticide dealer who tells him how to use it.

He buys some fertilizers and pesticides from the shop. Ganesh also mentions that he took loan from a money lender to buy them.

Chemicals in Farming

He goes to his farm and applies them. 

He comes back home, leaves the pesticide bottles inside his house and sits down beside it to have his 

food along with the family.

He will be informed of the chemicals that are there in his system.

Gita and Cosmetics

Gita sits before the mirror applying the cosmetics.

She purchases from flashy shops in the malls and tries out various kinds of lipsticks, nail polish, 

creams, in her effort to beautify herself.

Her family encourages her to try out these cosmetic products. A boy comes to see her for a 

marriage proposal.

Formaldehyde a cancer causing chemical in Gita can be tracked to the nail polish that she uses. 

Or Acrylamide to the potato chips that she eats while walking around the mall.

At CSE laboratory with Sunita Narain who will analyze the blood results and give a holistic view of the 

chemicals that have entered the bodies of the three characters and how it will affect them.

A Film for My Unborn: Treatment

India is on its path to boost a high economic growth. This is transforming the lifestyles 

of ordinary people and in turn affecting them in many ways and the environmental 

surroundings.

The focus of the film will be on how much of this growth is detrimental to the general 

well being of the nation. The three characters Lakshmi, Ganesh and Gita are ordinary 

people whose real life stories will reflect this issue. It will bring about this message in 

a subtle way using appropriate visuals and telling interviews of those who are affected 

by this process.

We will follow Lakshmi as she goes about with her daily routine. She goes to the stream 

where she washes clothes. The polluted discoloured water can be seen when she starts 

rinsing the clothes. She goes back home with the clothes. Next we follow her to the 

well from where she gathers water. Again the colour is slightly brown.

She is seen at the gas stove cooking with the same water. Later the family sits down to 

eat as she serves them food. Finally after all have eaten she sits down to have her food.

We follow her to the clinic along with her husband where the doctor attends to her and 

advices her to be careful and not lift heavy things especially since it is a known fact  in 

Patancheru that uteruses have become weaker due to the chemicals and the foetus is 

unable to hold on to the uterus.

Sometimes Lakshmi talks about her baby and says she is not sure whether her pregnancy 

will survive until the end or whether she will have a healthy baby.

Lakshmi is told of the results of her blood test and informed that most of the chemicals 

that is in her body has entered from the environment that she lives.

We follow her until the end of her pregnancy.

Ganesh’s father started using chemicals in his farm as a result of the new policies 

followed by the government. Ganesh continued to do what his father did.

He buys chemicals from the pesticide shop and the dealer tells him how to use it and 

when. He takes a loan from the dealer who says that if he does not return the loan then 

he has to give his harvest to cover the amount.

He goes to his farm and starts applying them with minimal protective equipment. 

He goes home with the pesticides, leaves them by his side, washes his hands and has 

his food very close to where he has kept the chemicals. He rests a little away from it.  

Ganesh is completely surrounded by the chemicals that he uses.

Throughout these sequences Sunita Narain will be making analyses of the blood tests 

of the three characters and point out to the sources from where it is coming.

She will explain to Ganesh that the chemicals that he is carrying in his blood can be 

co-related to the pesticides that he is using in his fields and keeps inside his home.

We will follow Gita to the malls and shops from where she will be making her purchases 

for her cosmetics. We see her applying them. Her parents say that they need her to 

look attractive and that is why she has to use them especially since she is of the 

marriageable age.

As far as Ganesh and Gita are concerned there are alternatives but with Lakshmi due to 

her economic conditions she is unable to shift to another location.

Also the three characters come from different situations, Lakshmi from an industrial 

area, Ganesh from a rural area and Gita from a big city. The pace, lifestyle, economic 

differences are varied and different from the other. This will affect the visuals that are 

being shown in the film. 

I am in touch with the local contacts at Patancheru, Yevetmal and Mumbai for the three 

characters and Sunita Narain at CSE who will provide the scientific input.

In Patancheru I am also in touch with Dr.Kishan Rao who has been fighting the issue 

since the past 16 years and has agreed to be part of the film as a main spokesperson. 

The pregnant woman will be identified once the film gets its clearance.

Since I have made two films on the suicides of farmers in Vidarbha, Maharastra and 

Wayanad, Kerala, I am aware of the poisonous chemicals that are used for farming.

The film will raise issues such as the idea of 'progress' and 'development'. What is 

development and at whose expense? Cheap drugs are being made in Patancheru and 

exported, so who is progressing and whose lives and surroundings are being demolished 

in the process.   

 Link to trailer of Suma Josson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJTACfaIBdM

Link to film ‘Niyamgiri You are Still Alive’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJt59wbNI6s

Link to film 'I Want My Father Back'

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09SoQ7hQvGM&feature=bulletin

Note on Suma Josson

Born in Kerala, Suma Josson graduated in English Lit. from the College of St.Teresa,

 Minnesota, U.S.A. Having begun her career as a journalist, she switched over to the visual

 medium. Since then she has made two feature films and many documentary films on a wide

range of issues. Her film on the suicide of farmers in Vidarbha, Maharastra has won awards.  

Janmadinam, her first feature film, in 1999 has won several awards and has travelled to

 various International Film Festivals and Universities abroad. It was premiered at the 2000

 Berlin Film Festival. 

Also contributed to the documentary, 'Trading Images', an international co-production with

IFU, (International Women's University, Hannover) and the German television company, NDR

in 2001. This was made along with four other women filmmakers from: the U.S, Africa,

China and Germany.  

She is also a poet and fiction writer and has published three books: Poems and Plays, 

A Harvest of Light (a collection of poems, Orient Longman), and ‘Circumferences’ (a novel,

 Penguin). Mahua Tola Gets A School, is a book on an experimental primary school system in

Madhya Pradesh, India.  

'Saree' is her second feature film made in 2001. This film has also traveled to several

international film festivals.

'Gujarat: A Laboratory of Hindu Rastra' was made two days before the last assembly

elections in Gujarat in 2003. It is set in the post-Godhra violence, which engulfed Gujarat in

March 2002. 

‘Ayodhya to Varanasi: Prayers for Peace’, 2004 looks at the Ram Temple issue as the film

travels from Ayodhya to Varanasi. 

‘Before the Last Tree Falls’, 2006 is a study on the suicide of farmers in Wayanad, Kerala. 

 ‘I Want My Father Back’, 2007 is a study on the suicide of farmers in Vidarbha, Maharastra. 

Raghuvanshi, The Seed Man, His Stories (2010) a plant breeder in Varanasi, U.P.

She has made three films on the Niyamgiri issue. This is on the awaiting eco-disaster and the

eviction of indigenous groups in Niyamgiri Hills if Vedanta/Sterlite is given permission to

mine bauxite on these ranges.

‘If You Give Niyamgiri, Niyamgiri Will Eat Us Up’ (2007) and ‘Dead gods haunt a land once

called Niyamgiri’ (2008) and recently ‘Niyamgiri You are Still Alive’ (2010). 

e-mail: sumajosson@yahoo.com  Tel: 91-22-28401605/ 91- 9969198284

Awards: I Want my Father Back

Won the first prize at the Kathmandu International Mountain Film Festival, Dec, 2008

Won the first prize at the 3rd Short and Documentary Film Festival, Karimnagar, India, 2009

‘Niyamgiri You Are Still Alive’ won the Vasudha, Environment Award at the International Film Festival of India in Goa, 2010.

Film crew

Cameraman

Rakesh Haridas

Editor

Nisha J

Rakesh Haridas, Director Of Photography

Qualification

Diploma in Cinematography, Film & Television Institute of India, Pune - 2002-‘05

Documentaries 

I Want My Father Back

Suma Josson

Dead Gods Haunt a Land called Niyamgiri

Suma Josson

‘Lakshmi & Me’

Directed by Nishtha Jain

Format – DV, Genre – Documentary

Supported by ITVS International, USA, Danish Film Institute

At my doorstep’

Directed by Nishtha Jain

Format –HDV, Genre – Documentary

Feature films

Dhasaiyinai Thee chudinum (ongoing project)

Language – Tamil

Format – Red

For AGNO3, Chennai

Nisha Josson

Editor

 Edited and scripted Dheere Dheere a 30-min documentary film on Magasaysay Award winner Rajendra    

        Singh, pioneer of water harvesting in Rajasthan.

 Edited, co-scripted shot Touch 4, a 22-interview docu on commercial sex workers in Sangli

 Asst. Editor to documentary filmmaker Thomas D. Hayes

 Jus Punjabi TV Time Warner Cable, New York: Video editor, Jus Punjabi, Astoria, New York

 Wildlife Conservation Society, New York: Editor, Motion Graphics animator for WCS’ Animal Behavior Research series – a six-part DVD project.

   ‘Niyamgiri You are Still Alive’ (2010) by Suma Josson a film on the indigenous groups fighting a bauxite mining company