In January I had left Australia to work on a new film in India in collaboration with the Digital Empowerment Foundation and Inomy Media. I was there, based in Dehli, for five months. OCEAN IN A DROP explores the impact broadband is making on mostly rural and tribal communities, some who have barely heard a radio nor seen a TV.
The Foundation has a target of providing one billion people with access to broadband internet and digital literacy training by 2020. Where broadcast has barely reached broadband is increasingly available. What are the consequences for communities that are literate in oral traditions, millions that have not yet forgotten how to remember, that in so many parts of the north east where I had visited provide the agricultural labour that pours food into India’s expanding urban and special economic zones?
With production completed and translations of up to sixty interviews rolling in I should have a reasonable grasp of next steps, from post-production funding to writing and post itself. Transcripts of the interviews thus far are a revelation. Clearly it was impossible to translate the minutia of the conversations I sought to have with each of our interviewees on location. What can I say? Reading and writing this next phase is a challenging joy!
Behind the scenes observations by Cathy Cheng and Mubeen Siddique were recorded on Tumblr via our working title of Upliftdoco.
andrew garton 