Theatre For Change founder Sujatha Balakrishnan’s short documentary, H2O, will release on World Water Day (March 22).
The four-minute documentary will compare water usage in a rural area and the city. According to a 2015 study quoted by the United Nations, nearly half the global population experience water scarcity at least one month per year and this could increase to some 4.8-5.7 billion in 2050.
“I have been wanting to speak about this issue for a while,” says Sujatha. With her friend Menaka Venugopal’s support, she visited Vijayapura, a village in Karnataka. The images there were striking. For a pot of water, the women had to wait for hours while many of the privileged households in cities, she says, are wasteful in their water use. “For instance, when they brush, they never close the tap.”
It is this contrast that Sujatha has attempted to capture in her documentary. For this, she roped in a cinematographer, Lakshman Shastry, and Vasanti Sundaram, who did the voice-over.
Lakshman, who worked in a documentary for the first time, says, the people of the village were welcoming. “We shot there for a day. There was hardly any trouble at all.”
The documentary will be released on Theatre For Change’s YouTube channel on March 22.
Leave a Reply