‘Kaala’ spotlights slum dwellers’ plight

Indian blockbuster puts rare focus on land rights of urban poor

MUMBAI, June 13, (RTRS): Residents of Mumbai’s sprawling Dharavi slum face down a powerful politician eying their community for a real estate development in an Indian blockbuster, which puts a rare spotlight on land rights of the urban poor.

Audiences have been applauding when the character played by Tamilcinema superstar Rajinikanth tells the politician: “To you land is power, to us it means life.”

Kaala, which means “black” in Tamil and other Indian languages, has been making large gains at the box office, despite focusing on a subject that is rarely addressed in Indian cinema, including Hindi-language Bollywood.

Pa Ranjith said his movie was inspired by a visit to Mumbai, which is home to Bollywood as well as more than 18 million slum dwellers, or 60 percent of the city’s population, according to government data.

“I was in Mumbai and saw the city as vertical high-rises and horizontal slums. You can easily see that divide,” said the director, who is based in Chennai, the centre of Tamil cinema.

“That is why I wanted to make this film. Bollywood is completely different and makes fantasy films,” he said. “Even in (Tamil movies from) Chennai they don’t want to discuss these issues.”

Pa Ranjith said he met with residents of Mumbai slums to talk about their needs and concerns. “The film carries people’s voice - that land is their right,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone. It is not the filmmaker’s first take on social issues; his previous release, Kabali, was about exploited tea plantation workers.

For his latest film, Pa Ranjith said he chose Dharavi because it is so well known and is in the heart of Mumbai, India’s financial capital.

Real estate in Mumbai is among the most expensive in the world, and residents of Dharavi have been resisting attempts to develop the slum, which sprawls over 240 hectares (590 acres).

“There is a lot of pressure from builders, developers, local leaders,” said Jockin Arputham, president of the National Slum Dwellers’ Federation in Mumbai.

Arputham, who Pa Ranjith spent time with while preparing to film Kaala, said older movies explored issues faced by the urban poor, but a popular film on the subject, with a famous lead actor, has not been made in about two decades.

In Kaala, Pa Ranjith takes on India’s entrenched caste system, which he said is a key issue, as people fighting for land rights are often from the lower end of the strict system of social hierarchy.

In one scene, the upper-caste politician refuses a drink of water at the home of the central character, who is a lower caste man played by Rajinikanth.

“Caste is everywhere. It is at the root of this divide. We need to cut the root,” said Pa Ranjith, who is from the Dalit community, which continues to struggle despite laws against discrimination.

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LOS ANGELES: Amazon India has announced “The Family Man,” an original series for its Prime Video streaming service.

Directed by Raj Nidimoru and Krishna D.K. (“Go Goa Gone”,) the series will follow an agent with India’s National Intelligence Agency who has to protect the country from terrorists while also protecting his family from the impact of his secretive, high-pressure, and low paying job. The series is headlined by Manoj Bajpayee, who has won multiple acting prizes including best actor at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards for “Aligarh,” and Priyamani, winner of India’s National Film Award for best actress for “Paruthiveeran”.

The cast also includes Sharib Hashmi (“Slumdog Millionaire”,) Neeraj Madhav (“Charlie”,) Sharad Kelkar (“Boichek,”) Sunny Hinduja (“Aasma”,) and Shreya Dhanwantary (“The Girl in Me”). “There is a lot of content out there for people to watch, so it becomes essential for us to not only make our series sincerely and sensitively, but also to tell a unique story - something that concerns the common man and his uncommon life with his extraordinary struggle,” said Bajpayee.

“The Family Man” will be available to Amazon Prime subscribers worldwide in 2019 in the Hindi, Tamil and Telugu languages. Amazon previously released Indian drama series including “Inside Edge” and “Breathe.”

LOS ANGELES: Pakistani transgender icon Rimal Ali is set to make a cinematic debut as one of the leads in “Love in 7 Days” (“7 Din Mohabbat In”) over the upcoming Eid holiday.

IMGC Global will release the film Friday in Pakistan. B4U Motion Pictures will release it in the United Arab Emirates, UK, US, Canada, Germany, Spain, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

Meenu Gaur and Farjad Nabi’s Urdu-language romantic comedy is produced by Dawn Films. The film also headlines Pakistani superstar Mahira Khan, Sheheryar Munawar and Javed Sheikh. Ali, a skilled dancer and a highly visible face of the Pakistani transgender community, featured in a music video for Pakistani band Soch in 2017.

“The first thing I wanted to be sure of when the role was offered to me was whether it makes a mockery of our community, which happens often in Bollywood and Lollywood films,” said Ali. “So I was thrilled at how wonderfully, sensitively and rather matter-of-factly the story places a transgender character. Meenu and Farjad made sure not to victimize the character either, which is another trap that films often fall into.”

“The message in the film is that it makes no difference if you are a man or a woman, both, or whichever you prefer,” Gaur said. “And the fact this film is being released in the same year that Pakistan passed the landmark Transgender Persons Act, which gives the right to every person to self-identify, makes having Rimal in our film extra special.”

After years of being marginalized and discriminated against, the transgender community is slowly entering the mainstream media narrative in Pakistan. This year, Marvia Malik became the first transgender television news anchor; transgender activist Zara Changezi is starring in short film “Denial”; “Shanakht,” a feature starring several transgender actors, is due in the coming months; and Gaur and Nabi’s next film, “Barzakh: Between Heaven and Hell,” revolves around a transgender protagonist.

However, parts of the Pakistani establishment remain conservative. The censor board recently banned Bollywood film “Veere Di Wedding,” starring Kareena Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor, for “vulgar dialog and sexual scenes.” In India, the film caused a social media uproar for a masturbation scene performed by actress Swara Bhaskar. The film benefited from the publicity and has grossed some $18 million worldwide.