Content warning: This article contains descriptions of sexual violence.
The Block Museum hosted a two-night retrospective Thursday and Friday with award-winning documentary filmmaker Deepa Dhanraj, screening her films “Tobacco Embers,” “Something Like A War” and “Invoking Justice” before a discussion panel and audience Q&A.
Dhanraj is one of the founders of Indian feminist film collective Yugantar. The collective’s films have been shown at national and international film festivals.
Released in 1982, Thursday’s “Tobacco Embers” focuses on the founding of a union of female tobacco factory workers in Nippani, Karnataka. Yugantar recorded their exploitative work conditions and unionizing strategies.
Dhanraj described her documentary-making process as collaborative, emphasizing the “co-creative approach” Yugantar took. The collective’s filmmakers lived in the area for two months, conversing with the women after they finished work.
“I think we came to an understanding of the story they wanted to tell and what was possible from our side as well,” Dhanraj said.
The documentary ends with an extended, unedited sequence of the women debating further negotiation tactics.
Dhanraj said she left the conclusion long and open-ended on purpose.
“I just wanted to keep it at that length,” She said. “I didn’t want a nice, tidy ending because that union and the work they do is going to continue.”
After “Tobacco Embers,” The Block Museum showed “Something Like A War.” Released in 1991, the documentary discusses the flaws and coercive tactics of India’s family-planning program that was established in 1952 and lasted until the 1980s. The film centers the perspectives of women who were unfairly targeted to undergo forced sterilization procedures.
The film alternates between a conversation between women discussing the difficulties they faced and a doctor carrying out a sterilization procedure at a clinic.
In one of the conversations, the women complete a body mapping exercise, highlighting their erogenous zones on a traced outline of a woman’s figure. Body mapping is a process used to help women who face trauma from sexual violence.
Dhanraj said that once they started the exercise, they didn’t stop for nine hours.
“I think for women to speak about desire, to speak about the pain of not being able to conceive — there is no space to do it.” Dhanraj said. “In India, it’s very hard to find a space where this can happen.”
The film ends with the woman undergoing the sterilization process, yelling, “Bastards, get off of me,” as her voice is muffled by another doctor.
Communication graduate student Belu-Olisa Sarkissian attended the screening as she had taken classes in environmental justice and population control as an undergraduate. She said “Something Like A War” was intense but informative.
“It was good to see that human component and not just statistical information,” she said.
She added that she found Dhanraj’s co-creation process for “Tobacco Embers” interesting.
On Friday, The Block screened “Invoking Justice,” another Yugantar film detailing the rise of the first women’s “jamaat,” an Islamic civil justice system, in Southern India.
As an aspiring journalist, Medill sophomore Sara Mouasher said she was inspired by Dhanraj’s advocacy in her documentaries.
“It’s encouraging and empowering that there have been attempts to strengthen the voices of the women,” she said. “I hope my work can have a similar impact on these types of communities.”
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