VANDANA MENON
The Water Station
The Water Station is a film adaptation by the playwright, Abhishek Majumdar of a play by Japanese playwright Ōta Shōgo, written in 1981.
It is about our experience of the world and how it is shaped by what we have to leave behind, who we can leave with, and what happens when we meet others in our journeys.
Movement, sound, and silence paint a vivid journey of migration and the act of leaving home, not as a choice, but in desperation.
Produced by NYU, Abu Dhabi
Won Special Award for Editing at the Eastern Europe Film Festival.
Won Best Editing at the 8 1/2 Film Festival, Rome
CoVisions
CoVISIONS is a collection of short films by young filmmakers across five continents available as a series and a feature omnibus, telling intimate stories about their experience of Covid-19. With insight and honesty, the filmmakers tackle themes such as family, loneliness, revolution, disappointment - and make unexpected discoveries about their loved ones, their societies, and themselves. Available as an omnibus feature or a shorts series.
Curated and Produced by Marcia Jarmel & Hervé Cohen
Official Selection DocEdge Film Festival 2021
The FOREST RIGHTS ACT
The Forest Rights Act (FRA), for the first time in 2006, granted tribal communities the right of settlement in forest areas. Till then, they were “encroachers”. Fourteen years after a historic law was formulated to give forest dwellers legal ownership of their traditional land, their fate still hangs in the balance. A recent Supreme Court verdict, which almost made their eviction imminent, has brought the focus back on the complex rights recognition process under the Forest Rights Act. The forests of India are home to 8 per cent of the country's population and they are the keepers of traditional knowledge and forest conservation practices.
Produced by Srishti Films
Best Indian Short Documentary Film at the All Living Things Environmental Film Festival (ALTEFF) in 2022.
Screened at Vikalp @ Prithvi Film Festival, One Billion Rising South Asia Film Festival.
Premiered at the ICCA Consortium 10th Anniversary Festival.
ATREE Banni Series
The Banni Grasslands Reserve in the Rann of Kutch, Gujarat in West India was known to be Asia's largest grasslands. Home to the elusive indian and desert foxes and the endangered Great Indian Bustard, the landscape has changed dramatically over the past few decades due to human intervention. The two film series explores the impact of the invasive species Prosopis Juliflora introduced by the government of India, on the ecology, environment and livelihoods in Banni.
Produced by ATREE & Srishti Films
Nominated for Best Short Documentary Film at the Chennai International Film Festival
VIKALP SANGAM Series
Srishti Films in partnership with Kalpavriksh, produced a series of films on alternative initiatives in India. Sustainable livelihoods for pastoralists in Rajasthan to preserving local heritage in Kerala, the need for community conservation in the forests of Arunachal Pradesh, peoples’ initiative against unsustainable development in Sikkim, sustainable architecture for tribals in Tamil Nadu and gender rights in Karnataka are a few of the issues tackled by this series.
Produced by Kalpavriksh & Srishti Films
Dark Fibre
A hybrid Fiction/documentary which is a radical exploration of the global exchange of capital and information set in the 'Silicon Valley of India' Bangalore. Featuring a narration by Noam Chomsky. Co-funded by the UK Film Council & Babelgum, the film premiered at the Abandon Normal Devices Festival, Liverpool in 2010 and was released as an episodic web series on Babelgum.
Produced by the UK Film Council & Babelgum
Premiered at the Abandon Normal Devices film festival, Liverpool
Broadcast on Internet TV platform Babelgum
© 2023 by Vadana Menon