Content_DV_XII

Overview

0:00-1:02	11.03.2002	Inter-View between filmmaker Suma Josson and Brigitte Schulze after Workshop I with ca.17 Marginalised women from M.-location and a “dalit colony”
		>> protocol

Time	Content	Inter-Facing
	11.03.2002, Inter-view Suma Josson – Brigitte Schulze afterWorkshop I at Exon guesthouse, Kottayam	Inter-view S.Josson – B.Schulze
0:00	Schulze asks about her opinion on the workshop: Did the M. and D.-women take and find new perspectives on saree, the mutual enrichment was “remarkable“	Marginal women‘s re-action to saree
0:02	Suma: „saree no regular commercial film, - but she thought that the women would say something negative, but they liked it a lot, - when these women couldn´t understand certain scenes in the film they didn’t blame it on the film, women became much more sensitive to certain points of film -> remarkable, because otherwise influenced by standardised Hindi cinema: dance and violence, maybe because there existed a special type of popular Kerala cinema ...	Suma on saree Suma and Brigitte on the great sensitivity of Marginalised women
0:06	Suma: “I always left interpretation to audiences ... left it open, there is a certain remembrance of Abraham and Isaac … in the sacrificing mother, she is showing her child through life … all this, ... these women are so extremely open to various ideas ...” Schulze: “My experience when I discuss films with male audience [Kerala films] ….they start with their inability to understand this and that; but in contrast to the women yesterday, these men don´t seek clarifications; the women get in close touch with filmmaker and film	Suma’s philosophy of a reflective sinima, Marginal women’s openness, B.S.’s philosophy of sinima: - men destroy by discussion - women get in touch
0:11	Suma: her discussion with students also very harsh, she is advised not to make such non-understandable films. Very easy for me to make a commercial film, but as an artist and filmmaker “I look at it from a historical perspective” Schulze: The symbol that is the bicycle man in saree … Suma:“One of the women said the bicycle man represents death. … finally has become nature to absorb death. They are all interpreting the film from their own experience ... Cinema works basically on an emotional level, what it brings to you, that´s what it is all about.”	Suma’s experiences with intellectual audiences, Suma’s her historical perspective Suma finds the women understand ideas, symbols about death-life, cinema is an emotional medium
0:15	Schulze: …echoing of of life in films ….what cinema can do .. like a poem ...	Schulze: cinema is like a poem
0:17	Suma: “ The women said … the relationship between these two girls .. two of them said the bonding of these two girls is so strong – when I was working on the skript all these things passed on my mind, ... I was extremely apprehensive .. all the women opened up .. brilliant ideas, all in all a beautiful experience, it gives me hope… Schulze: “.. I encourage them ... you are the same kind of person … we do not play with them .. respect them ... the women normally experience lots of disrespect ... because women are poor or poor dalits .. it silences them … this EL and our cooperation is on a mutual level of respect.	Suma: women like friendship between girls, women opened up, brilliant ideas, experience gives hope B.S.: sinima cooperation means to respect each other
0:24	Suma: “…and cinema is life… there is also a kind of thing they saw .. observed something else: why did you show this drunkard beating up his wife .. among them these things bring up a lot of questions .. I am very happy about this .. to show films to this kind of people .. not to intellectuals .. they come out with the most unreasonable perspectives…	Suma: cinema is life, cinema throws up quesions intellectuals are not sensitive
0:27	Schulze: “How people see films is how they see human relationships, these women have an attitude which is humane.. and not too fixed how the other has to be … like a child, .. adults have to be and mostly are extremely fixed in Kerala … only in children and women in Kerala an attitude preserved to be open to others”	B.S.: How people see films is similar to their perspective on human relations, women here take more easily hum-ane perspectives, women and child-ren are more open to others
0:30	Suma: ...”I spent my childhood in Kerala, my poem “ran with thornwings under my feet” ... women in Kerala… are no better than in other parts of India .. as suppressed, middle-class women exposed to tv serials .. dalit women .. work with their hands, they are much more able to con-duct balanced discussions: it was really like passing it round .. a true exchange ..”	Suma’s childhood in Kerala: “Thornwings”, women in Kerala are suppressed especially middle class women
0:34	Schulze: “If they say no,no,no, it is not destructive; I see as a sociologist big rifts here, Kerala is not one society … a big rift between poor classes and educated classes.. how they relate to nature, market… I can see values of the women ... they pray .. are very ethical … share views as they share goods.. they form a kind of antipode to what happens in Kerala’s middle classes, here the mantra is competition, everything is done in competition …	B.S. poor classes more ethical than educated classes, more sharing middle classes’ mantra is competition
0:39	Suma: “materialism is related to the dowry-system -> working, saving money for daughter.. vicious circle.. damaging society.. many roots of fundamentalism.. Christian fundamentalism is just growing. Also high rate of suicide… 1000s of women are together in strange Christian or Hindu gatherings hoping for a miracle in total helplessness. What is happening in Kerala is very unhealthy.. they have taken the wrong track.. communist.. land reform was good but now wrong track…She likens Kerala to a bottle of small baby vipers, I will always come to Kerala/family .. but I know that I don´t make a second film in Malayalam, it is my personal problem.”	Suma: dowry system is a vicious circle, roots to fundamentalism and high suicide rate in Kerala Suma: Kerala’s development is unhealthy
	Schulze: “I have to share two observations: >Your saree contains visions which I felt are very much present in Kerala, stil l… an energy the women showed, despite all the restrictions … your film communicated to these energies ... this potential is still there in Kerala.”	Schulze: saree contains positive visions and energies still present in Kerala
0:45	Suma: “I am very happy with reactions of women .. honesty it shown…” Schulze: ..eternal struggle of these people ...The women are marginalised.. that´s why we speak same language… Suma: saree’s first screening in Surya film festival (Trivandrum), especially the doormen came running and said they liked the film … the power structures try to manipulate you .. but …	Suma: Marginal women are an honest audience Schulze: we all speak the same language of concern Suma: power structures manipulate
0:49	Schulze: with regard to the workshop … the women ... their views ...it was so important. The other thing, cinema itself, the making their own films … something in saree they have seen … important to get awareness of their situation… Many women here don´t want to see, ... women say that this is love .... maybe it is the only way she can emotionally survive … Schulze: -> reflections on her own and Suma Josson’s position	Schulze: these sinima experiences are important to the Marginal women, awareness of their situation, how do Marginal women survive emotionally? !! researcher’s and filmmaker’s posture>>
	Suma: “Awareness …it has come ... these are all signals which are sent across.” Schulze: “In D.-village I felt more mobile, the women guided me, had to walk more, the women are more outside the house, I experienced it different from women in M. When they said “enter my house”, husbands are much more visible in D.-village ... there´s a different way of sharing household work, a feeling of respect for each other, men and women, it is different in M. There is a need to do it to survive, so the men do it in D.-village. To Suma Josson: What are your plans with saree?”	Suma: awareness B.S.: mobility of a woman, gender relations in poor/ dalit houses, respect, sharing of work saree in TV?
0:59-1:02:50(End)	Suma: “Contact some private television channels in Kerala ... only way to show the work .. material situation.. most important for me is to create an artistic piece of art … no regrets of spending the money ...	material problems of a dedicated filmmaker

>> refers to texts on this indexed topic under “Kerala Womens’ Cinema&Self Praxis”