03/11/2010

Italian-Indian co-production Gangor [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Italo Spinelli is the second Italian film and the first of the domestic titles in Competition at the Rome International Film Festival not spoken in Italian. Although helmed by Spinelli, an Italian documentary filmmaker and director of the Asiatica Filmmediale festival in Rome, the setting and story are entirely Indian, the actors Indian and of Indian descent, and the language mostly English.

The film is a far cry from the music, sequins and sparkling colours of Bollywood. The story takes place in West Bengali, where the largest number of the country’s tribal villages are concentrated, and is based on the short “Behind the Bodice” by Mahasweta Devi, a renowned Bengali activist and writer, and possible Nobel Prize contender.

Handsome, urban photo-journalist Upin (Adil Hussain) travels to Purulia with his assistant Ujan (Samrat Chakrabarti) to document inhumane living conditions of the local tribal women and is struck by Gangor (Priyanka Bose), whom he photographs topless as she breastfeeds her son. But his noble intentions produce ignoble results – when the “scandalous” photo of Gangor ends up on the front page of the papers, she becomes a victim of all kinds of violence, especially sexual.

"Naturally, I also thought of the Indian audiences, and I tried to avoid being didactic and offering an exotic view of India,” said Spinelli who, however, fails in this respect. Gangor’s problems lie precisely in an excessively didactic and paternalistic tone, and characters that tend to be two-dimensional. Produced by Bìbì Film, Isaria Production and Nirvana Motion Pictures Ltd in collaboration with RAI Cinema, Gangor will be released in Italy in 2011, and in India even sooner. That’s if the dreaded risk of censorship does not become reality.

"This film could spark very violent reactions in India,” said Spinelli, “both for the nudity and the social issue.”