Total Wash Out

When the monsoon floods of 2005 ravaged Mumbai,bringing the city to its knees,independent filmmaker Natasha Mendonca had a hard time coping with its vagaries.

Natasha Mendoncas documentary on Mumbai floods makes it to the Rotterdam International Film Festival

When the monsoon floods of 2005 ravaged Mumbai,bringing the city to its knees,independent filmmaker Natasha Mendonca had a hard time coping with its vagaries. Her family mansion in Borivali,Jan Villa,was completely inundated,leaving it in a miserable state. There was water half way up the walls,completely spoiling the fabric of the building. We later sold it off for a pittance, recalls Mendonca,32. Last year she shot a 20-minute documentary,Jan Villa,based on her recollections of the floods,as part of a thesis submission for her Masters in Film and Video from the California Institute of Arts,USA. The film is one of the two Indian entries in the running for this years Tiger Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival,which carries a cash prize of euros 15,000 (approximately Rs 9 lakhs). The festival begins on January 26.

In 2009,the now New-York based Mendonca,returned to the Maximum City to shoot the film at her family home. Since the character of the city had changed dramatically since the floods,there was little scope to capture the damage left in its wake. Plus,there was a drought that year. So I decided to focus on the idea of family,and how the floods invaded my home, explains Mendonca. The destruction caused by the floods became a metaphor for the disintegration of the family and home. Jan Villa becomes a vortex,which pulls all the destruction of the surrounding environment inside. The film starts with images of the city during the floods,interspersed with snatches of conversations between family members,before focusing on the images of the house in ruins. The film was also screened last year at the Vienna Film Festival and the World Film Festival,Bangkok.

Mendoncas previous works Fragments,Two-Way Street,Madsong straddle topics ranging from gender issues to feminism. Being an independent filmmaker I can afford to be risque and abstract in my content, she continues. The other film in the running for the Award is Vipin Vijays The Image Threads ,which won critical acclaim at the South Asian Film Festival,New York,in September last year.

Stay updated with the latest - Click here to follow us on Instagram

Loading Taboola...