DIVE
2016 | Short Documentary Film | 19 minutes | Hindi & Gujarati
Credit : Research - Director - Editor
Dive is a short observational documentary on life under Ellis Bridge unveiled through the story of a 10 year old boy, Manna and his everyday romance with the river, Sabarmati. Upon closer look, it is a story of displacement and survival.
- Documentary Film project as a Film Student at NID -
WINNER : TOTO SHORT FILM AWARDS 2017
OFFICIAL SELECTION : INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY & SHORT FILM FESTIVAL OF KERALA, 2016
JURY REVIEW
by TOTO Short Film Awards (2016)
The ethnographic style of her film Dive establishes a relationship with the subject through familiarity, humour and dialogue rather than cold observational detachment. The small bodies of the precocious children against the sheer enormity of the bridge and the river, evoke an ominousness that quietly underlines the entire film. We see them extract the wastes of the river and turn them into items of trade for their very survival. And this serious business of money, trading, survival, life and death contrasts tragically with the playfulness of the boys and the life they live with a certain abandon in a fraught public location. Through such intricate and mundane details of life under the bridge, the film portrays with warmth and humanity, the precarious, extra legal existence of children for whom this place is home.
