Deepa Dhanraj
Deepa Dhanraj is a researcher, writer and an independent documentary filmmaker. Her documentaries and writing span a period of forty years and engage with questions related to women’s status, political participation and resistance.
Co-founding the film collective Yugantar initiated her work in the context of women’s political organising around labour, domestic violence and environmental conditions. Law as a site of inquiry has been an enduring theme for Deepa Dhanraj. Whether it is films that interrogate customary law and the strategies that tribal and Muslim women use to counter patriarchal verdicts, or formal law, examining how a human rights legal practice began invoking the protections of the Constitution against the suppression of dissent, custodial violence and state impunity. Most crucially Dhanraj’s focus was on how one could insist on governments taking responsibility for safeguarding the constitutional right to life and liberty of all its citizens.
The caste question and the myriad forms of discriminations that Dalits experience and the rise of Dalit assertion is another theme that Deepa Dhanraj explores in many films. She has a special interest in education and she has worked extensively with Government schools to create pedagogy suited for problems faced by first generation learners who come from Dalit and Adivasi communities.
Her films have been screened and awarded at national and international film festivals, such as Mumbai International Film Festival, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam IDFA, Berlinale, Dok Leipzig, Oberhausen Film Festival, Festival International Du Film Documentaire Nyon, Switzerland and Cinema du Reel, International Documentary Film Festival, Paris. She has served on Juries at National and International film festivals.
Deepa Dhanraj is a founding member of The Oral History Association of India.
Deepa Dhanraj co-authored the book. “Rupture, Loss and Living: Minority women speak about post conflict life.” with K. Lalita, published by Orient Black Swan. A volume that puts together the oral narratives of Muslim women survivors of sectarian violence that took place in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Gujarat in the last three decades. The narratives presented foreground a critique of power and contemporary society rooted in these women’s experiences of violence and survival.
Deepa Dhanraj has also contributed papers on gender and development at national and international conferences.
Dhanraj is currently working on an audiovisual archive of the students anti-caste movement that arose in 2016 post the tragic suicide of the Dalit Phd research scholar Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad, following her film We have not come here to die (2019), remembering Rohith Vemula.
Reflections
“Part of our work was also to legitimize these movements led by women as important movements, as they were not only invisibilised by the trade unions at the time, which were led by men, but also not valued within a hierarchy of what was seen as significant issues.”
Deepa Dhanraj
Nicole Wolf
Films Produced/Directed
2018: We Have Not Come Here to Die
110 minutes • Prod by: SAMA, and NHK Japan • Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, English
On January 17th 2016 a Dalit, Phd research scholar, and activist Rohith Vemula unable to bear the persecution from a partisan University administration and dominant caste Hindu supremacists hung himself in one of the most prestigious universities in India. His suicide note, which argued against the “value of a man being reduced to his immediate identity” galvanized student politics in India. Over the last year thousands of students all over the country have broken the silence around their experiences of caste discrimination in Universities and have started a powerful anti-caste movement. The film attempts to track this historic movement that is changing the conversation on caste in India.HK Japan.
2011: Invoking Justice
86 minutes • Prod by: SAMA, NHK Japan, YLE 2 and ITVS, Jan Vrijman Foundation • Tamil
In Southern India, family disputes are settled by Jamaats—all male bodies which apply Islamic Sharia law to cases without allowing women to be present, even to defend themselves. Recognizing this fundamental inequity, a group of women in 2004 established a women’s Jamaat, which soon became a network of 12,000 members spread over 12 districts. Despite enormous resistance, they have been able to settle more than 8,000 cases to date, ranging from divorce to wife beating to brutal murders and more. The filmmaker Deepa Dhanraj follows several cases, shining a light on how the women’s Jamaat has acquired power through both communal education and the leaders’ persistent, tenacious and compassionate investigation of the crimes. In astonishing scenes we watch the Jamaat meetings, where women often shout over each other about the most difficult facets of their personal lives. Above all, the women’s Jamaat exists to hold their male counterparts and local police to account, and to reform a profoundly corrupt system which allows men to take refuge in the most extreme interpretation of the Qur’an to justify violence towards women.
Festivals
2017 Himal Southasia film festival, QFX award
2014 Mumbai International Film Festival, Golden Conch award
2014 Verzio International Human Rights Festival, Budapest
2014 Melbourne Film Festival.
2013 CAAM FEST, U.S.A
2013 The NY Asian International Film Festival, New York
2012 Doc Point Helsinki Documentary Film Festival
2012 Bollywood and Beyond,Germany
2012 The International Documentary and Short Film Festival, Kerala
2012 The Human Rights Film Festival ,Mexico City
2012 The Bir Duino Human Rights film Festival, ,Kyrgyzstan
2012 The Hawaii International film festival in Hawaii.
2012 The One World festival in Bratislava,Slovakia
2011 World Premiere, IDFA, Amsterdam
2011 One World International Human rights Festival Prague
Recently the film was part of the IAWRT (International Association of Women in Radio and Television) festival in India with screenings in 30 cities and towns, this festival was part of the One Billion rising campaign to highlight violence against women.
2007: The Advocate
120 minutes • Prod by: D&N Productions • Telugu/English
The name of K.G. Kannabiran is synonymous with the founding of the human rights and civil liberties movement in India. The film as part biography and partly history of the times attempts to document the
remarkable contribution of Mr Kannabiran in challenging the Indian State to uphold the rule of law in institutions of governance, justice and political praxis.
Festivals
2007 International Film and video Festival, Trivandrum, Kerala
2000: Nari Adalat (Women’s Courts)
30 minutes • Prod by: D&N Productions and Virage Films • Gujarati
The film documents the functioning of the Nari Adalat or Women’s Courts. It portrays an alternative legal system, which always puts women’s interests first.
Festivals
2007 Documentary and Video Festival Kassel
2007 Splice In Festival Berlin
2000 Montreal International Documentary Festival
1994: The Legacy of Malthus
50 minutes • Prod by: D&N Productions • English/Marwari • Color 16mm
The film takes on the International Population "Establishment ", challenging the entrenched Malthusian Theory that over population is responsible for poverty and environmental destruction.
Festivals
1994 Okomedia ' 94 - International Ecological Film Festival, Freiburg, Germany.
1994 Recontres Nord Sud. Geneva, Switzerland.
1994 Festival international du film documentaire, Nyon Switzerland
1994 Mumbai International Film Festival for short films and
documentaries, Mumbai, India.
1995 International Video Film Festival,Trivandrum India.
1996 Selected for World Video Festival in Brussels, Belgium
1991: 'Something like a War'
52 minutes • Prod by: D & N Productions, Equal Media Pvt.Ltd. • Hindi/Marwari
A historical overview of India's coercive Family Planning program and its effect on women.
Festivals and Awards
2008 IDFA
1992 Bombay International Film Festival for Short Films and Documentaries.
1992 Festival International Du Film Documentaire - Nyon, Switzerland. Won the Swiss Television Award.
1992 International Short Film Festival -Leipzeg, Germany.
1992 Festival of South-Asian Women Directors - Sakhi, New York, U.S.A.
1993 Tampere Film Festival - Finland.
1993 Desh Pradesh Film Festival - Toronto, Canada.
1993 Films De Femmes - Creteil, France. Won award for Best Long Documentary.
1993 Human Rights Convention, Geneva.
1986: 'Kya Hua Iss Shahar Ko' ( What has Happened to this City?)
90 minutes • Prod by: D&N Productions and Virage Films • Hindi/Telugu • Colour 16mm
This film attempts to analyse one communal riot between Hindu's and Muslim's filmed in Hyderabad City in September 1984. It identifies the fundamentalist organisations who are responsible for the conflict.
Festivals
2013: International Filmfest spiele Berlin, Living Archive Project
1987: International Film Festival, New Delhi.
1988: International forum for young cinema, 38th International Film Festspiel. Berlin, Germany.
1990: Cinema Du Reel, Paris.
1990: Screened on Channel - 4 Television, U.K. as part of their 'Women's Season'.
1983: Sudesha
30 minutes • Prod by: D&N Productions, Faust Film, Munich, ARD • Hindi • Color 16mm
This film is a portrait of Sudesha, a woman who is a village activist in the Chipko Forest Conservation Movement in the foothills of the Himalayas.
Festivals and Awards
1983 International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Germany.
1984 International Short Film Festival Liepzig, Germany. Won an award
1987 Vancouver Film Festival, Canada.
1989 Chicago International Film Festival, U.S.A.
1983: Idhi Katha Matramena (Is this just a story?)
25 minutes • Prod by: Yugantar Collective • Telugu • B &W 16mm
A fictional reconstruction of domestic violence, seen from the woman's point of view.
1982: Tambaku Chaakila Oob Ali
25 minutes • Prod by: Yugantar Collective • Marathi • B &W 16mm
The film traces the history of the mobilization of 4000 rural women tobacco workers, into the largest all women trade union in the non-formal sector, in Nipani, Karnataka.
1981: Molkarin (Maid Servant)
25 minutes • Prod by: Yugantar Collective • Marathi • B &W 16mm
The film exposes the oppressive working conditions of hundreds of maidservants in Pune and reveals how the women came together to form a union to fight for their rights.
1980: Founded YUGANTAR
A film collective with Abha Bhaiya, Navroze Contractor, and Meera Rao.
