MEALS READY
 

"The subject matter of poverty and economic deprivation is common to many documentaries. However, only rarely is a film able to build a substantial argument that details the chain of circumstance that binds people perpetually to their situation. For the sincerity and commitment with which it approaches and explores the politics of “rice” in South India, the prize for Second Best Film of the Festival goes to Meals Ready by Surajit Sarkar and Vani Subramanian."

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Jury Statement, Film South Asia, 1997,

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AWARDS

Second prize, Film South Asia 1997

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FESTIVALS

7th Kara Film Festival, Karachi, Pakistan, 2009

Cornell Cinema, Ithaca, USA, 2009

Mahila Matinee, Bhopal, 2009

River to River, Florence Indian Film Festival, 2008

14th Kolkata Film Festival, 2008

Travelling Film South Asia, 2008

1st International Video Festival of Kerala (IVFK), Thiruvananthapuram, 2008

3rd Cinemela, New Delhi 2008

4th IAWRT Asian Women’s Film Festival, 2008

The Mumbai International Film Festival 2008

Shared Histories Festival, Johannesburg, 2007

Signs 2007, Thiruvananthapuram

The Open Frame, a PSBT-UNESCO Festival, New Delhi 2007

Nord-Sud Media Encounters, Geneva 2007

DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT

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"For two decades, the destruction of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya has influenced national events in India. But beyond the symbolism that the Uttar Pradesh town holds for the rest of the country, how has that event affected life in Ayodhya itself? Blocked and barricaded, the only access to the citizens is through memory: the telling of stories, the hearing of tales, the very gatha of Ayodhya’s people."

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These are the words with which I used to summarise what I was trying to do when I made Ayodhya Gatha. For the decades that followed, Ayodhya sort of remained the same, while the politics of hate across the country

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