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Journalism of Courage
Written and directed by Shishir Jha, Tortoise Under The Earth (Dharti Latar Re Horo), a Santhali-language feature set in a uranium mining area of Jharkhand, adopts an organic and slightly unusual method of storytelling. It traces the everyday life and challenges of a tribal couple that copes with the loss of their daughter. This documentary-style feature, inspired by real life and people, explores the intertwined connections between tribal communities and the forest, their traditional home. It also brings in the vivid colours of their festivals, folk songs and a sense of community that binds them.
Tortoise Under The Earth, which is produced by Humara Medialabs and currently streaming on MUBI, is a poetic elegy to a world that is rapidly disappearing, subsumed by unchecked development and displacement. A National Institute of Design (Ahmedabad) graduate, Jha talks about making his first feature, capturing soundscapes of the Santhals, and how realities of uranium mining and displacement seeped into his script. Excerpts:
The film is based on real-life stories. I have introduced fictional elements to maintain the narrative flow. I did not want to make the story informative. Instead, I wanted to get a feel of this world. We tried to tell a story so that the viewers empathise and relate to the characters. I don’t think there is a big difference between a documentary and a fiction feature. Every movie has a story and evokes feelings.
I adopted a minimalist approach to reduce production costs. What had also stayed in my mind is what I had learnt from Iranian director-screenwriter Abbas Kiarostami. (Jha received a diploma in filmmaking at the workshop of Kiarostami at Escuela Internacional de Cine y TV in Cuba in 2016). We had to make a short film under his guidance. We went to nearby villages and when we returned, he asked us to narrate our stories. After listening to us, he felt Cuba was missing in every story. We realised that we have to use the resources we have around us for storytelling. I have tried to apply the same process while making Tortoise Under The Earth.
This film is shot in a Santhal village located 30 km away from Jamshedpur. I had read Paul Olaf Bodding’s Studies in Santal Medicine and Connected Folklore. Later, I came across Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s short story collection The Adivasi Will Not Dance. While I discovered so many things about Sathali life and culture through these books, I wanted to learn more about their contemporary issues.
When I visited the Santhal areas the experience was different. Since cities have expanded, these villages are now closer to urban areas. Initially, I did not want to tell an uranium-mining story since that’s what everyone tries to do. Also, there was a risk of having an outsider’s point of view. Intuitively, I was drawn to the story of the Baskey couple. They were welcoming when we shot at their home. Yet, I was careful about not intruding into their private space.
We did not follow a conventional process. If you have a script ready, you need a certain set-up and a budget. Here, we were inspired by their life and surroundings. They took us to the jungle near their village before we visited their homes. We just heard their stories and went with the flow. For instance, Jagarnath and Mugli were hesitant to talk about their daughter, whom they had lost. I tried to retain that and capture their reflections around her instead of asking them how she died.
The villagers there live in harmony and follow a minimalistic way of life. However, displacement is a reality. Some scenes were recreated because capturing the visuals of people leaving their homes were not possible since one did not know about it beforehand. Everything is based on reality, including the cases of premature deaths and children born with deformities. Most villagers are aware of the repercussions of mining but can’t leave.
They celebrate many festivals and they have a song for every occasion. Mugli used to always hum and sing. There are a few songs that I heard during village fairs. I asked sound recordist Binod Hansda, a local who assisted me for a year, to record and translate the songs. There were stories about how the earth was created. We got Durga Prasad Murmu, who teaches Santhali to local children, to compose and sing a song for us. We took him to a nearby jungle and recorded it there. Through the film I have tried to capture the rhythm of their life, which includes them dancing during a festival as well as Mugli speaking to flowers and trees.
