Movie and Lecture by Nilanjan Bhattacharya

October 10, 2019 | 17:00 h - 18:30 h

Speaker:                     Nilanjan Bhattacharya (Indian filmmaker, artist, writer and director of the movie)

Title of the movie:    Johar Welcome to Our World (Winner of National Film Award 2010 (Best Narration, for writing)

For many people in India the word `food’ means little other than what you eat to survive. A large section of these poorest of the poor are tribals or adivasis. Johar Welcome to Our World focuses on Jharkhand in eastern India, the home for thirty-two adivasi communities. These adivasis, have an old and dynamic dependence on their local forests from where they get a significant portion of their core nutrition and medicinal material. They have been engaged in a symbiotic relationship with the forests that deeply influences their social, religious and cultural expressions.

Johar Welcome to Our World, explores the intricate relationship the adivasis of Jharkhand have with their forests. The film documents traditional recipes, the medicinal qualities of various herbs, weeds and fruits and the traditional knowledge of their sustainable management by the adivasis. The film also lays how mindless, aggressive development and the government's wrong-headed conservation policies have damaged the tribals’ relationship with their land and pushed them ever deeper into food insecurity. 

The film is an attempt to draw attention towards an overlooked but rich and environmentally sustainable food culture that is hugely significance for a country like India.   

Nilanjan Bhattacharya is an Indian filmmaker, artist and writer. For the last 15 years he has been working on biodiversity, food cultures of the indigenous  people and related knowledge in India. His films and media art works include Johar Welcome To Our World, Ninety Degrees, Rain in the Mirror, Fishing Out of Time, and Quiet Flows the Stream; they have been exhibited at Mumbai International Film Festival, Goteborg International Film Festival, European Kunsthalle, Frankfurter Kunstverein, Experimenter Gallery and Wellcome Collection Gallery. Nilanjan received the President’s Award of India in 2005 and 2010. He writes on food and Calcutta’s public culture.

Nilanjan is currently living in Dresden, Germany and can be reached at: nilanjanbhatta1(at)gmail.com

WRITTEN DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY NILANJAN BHATTACHARYA

PHOTOGRAPHED BY RANU GHOSH  EDITED BY INDRAJIT DAS 

SOUND MIXING BY PARTHA BARMAN  VOICE BY QAUSHIQ MUKHERJEE

Supported by: ACTIONAID INDIA

58 MINS.  ENGLISH SUBTITLED  2010