Multimedia Woman

Television features, documentaries, feature films, novel writing, poetry. Suma Josson has done them all. Ever since her first independent...

Television features, documentaries, feature films, novel writing, poetry. Suma Josson has done them all. Ever since her first independent documentary chronicling the aftermath of the 1992-93 communal riots, Josson has been on a roll with diverse, even opposing means of self-expression; only the end result bears her individual stamp. Last week, the Prabhat Chitra Mandal screened Josson8217;s first full-length feature in Malayalam, Janmadinam A Day of Birth, starring Nandita Das and Surekha Sikri, at the Y B Chavan auditorium. And this week, Waste, which juxtaposes the creative muse of German installation artist Gerd Rohling with the economic complusions of Naseer the ragpicker, will be sceened at the National Centre for the Performing Arts. While both films were made a while back 8212; in 1997 and 1998 respectively 8212; their recent screenings in the city in a space of two weeks is but a happy coincidence for Josson.

Even as these films garner wah-wahs8216;, she is already plotting her nextproject, a film on the relationship between a grandfather and his grandson. quot;Cinema has always been of great interest to me. I knew that at some point, I would be making a feature.quot; Janmadinam is a private, personalised exploration of the hours spent by Sarasu, played by Das and her mother Sikri in a hospital waiting for Saras8217;s unborn child to emerge into the world. And although the film may have experiences and characters that seem like chapters out of Josson8217;s life, she says it is not autobiographical, except for the bit about the riots.

An English Literature graduate from Minnesota, USA, Josson8217;s journey into television was kicked off in the studios of Madras Doordarshan. She worked with the now defunct PTITV, set up by the wire service Press Trust of India, between 1989 and 1993, making several features. She then worked with the TVI channel for another four years. It was during this journalistic phase that the first of her documentaries rolled out. Bombay8217;s Blood Yatra was aspontaneous response to the communal bloodbath in Mumbai. quot;As a member of the governor8217;s peace committee, I moved around several riot-affected places. And when I went to Cooper Hospital, it was impossible to even stand among the piles of unclaimed bodies. It was then that I decided to record what was happening.quot;

Josson8217;s next venture too was on another great human tragedy, 47 Seconds and After: Latur and Osmanabad, on the earthquake in 1994. She has also made Akbar Padamsee and the Last Image on the painter, apart from publishing Poems and Plays, A Harvest of Light and Circumferences, a novel. Both Janmadinam and Waste draw strongly from Josson8217;s belief in image-based film-making that leans on the power of the visual rather than on the spoken word. In Waste, for one, she has used the dialogues as spoken by the principal characters as subtitles. And in Janmadinam, elaborately choreographed sequences with little dialogue carry the tale forward. quot;Myeffort has always been to deconstruct form, because that is what makes art possible.quot; She also believes in a point counter-point principle, where opposing elements are thrown together in the hope that meaning will eventually emerge. All this leaves Josson, who has since quit TV, little time to write these days. quot;It8217;s easier to make a film than to write a book. Film making is so much more practical, but with writing, you8217;re all alone.quot;

Akbar Padamsee and The Last Image and Waste by Suma Josson. At the Little Theatre, NCPA. On July 2. Time: 6.30 pm.