Director's Bio-Filmography:
Deepti Murali şi-a făcut studiile la TISS, Mumbai, India. și lucrează la MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. Prateek Shekhar deține diploma de Master în Media şi Studii Culturale de la Institutul Tata Institute de Ştiinţe Sociale din Mumbai. Shubhra Dixit este jurnalist video independent, stabilit în Mumbai, India și deţină o diplomă de Master în Media şi Studii Culturale de la TISS Mumbai şi o diplomă de licenţă în Literatură Engleză de la Universitatea din Delhi. Smita Vanniyar deţine o diplomă în Media şi Studii Culturale de la TISS Mumbai, şi o diplomă de licenţă în Istorie de la Facultatea Stella Maris. Vaibhav Sorte este un cineast din Mumbai, antreprenor şi cercetător, deținător unei diplome de Master în Media şi Studii Culturale de la TISS Mumbai.
Director's / Curator's Statement:
„As students of film ourselves, when we heard about a group of young male filmmakers on the poorer side of the Mumbai suburb our college was in, we were immediately intrigued. We met them and really hit it off. About the same age as us, they were producing a hyper local crime show called Govandi CID. The show was modelled on a popular and long running crime series on Indian TV, simply called CID (Crime Investigation Department). In Govandi, our college (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) is located in the eastern, more affluent part of the suburb. On the west there is India’s largest dumping ground, and a surrounding slum. The people producing Govandi CID live in this area, and come from really poor families. The area is known for crime and the rampant drug abuse among the youth, which springs from the abject poverty they live in. Battling these odds, SVJ Boyzz, as the collective calls themselves, were producing a show for the people of their slum, which worked as entertainment and as a campaign against drug use. According to them they didn’t want to be preachy about their message, since they thought that is boring to most people, a sentiment we agreed with. While our peers struggled to get filmmaking grants, or scholarships to make films, SVJ Boyzz were a source of inspiration to us. They were making a show that mattered to them, and their audience, on shoestring budgets. Our goal in making this film was to document the motivations, determination and ambitions of this creative group. We were drawn to their desire to create compelling content, which was the one thing we shared. All five of us who worked on the film are also driven by a desire for the same thing, but have never been in situations as trying as what our protagonists have faced.“ (Deepti Murali, Vaibhav Sorte, Shubhra Dixit, Smita Vanniyar, Prateek