ABOUT THE PROJECT

LOGLINE
In a remote village on the India-Myanmar border, 70 years after Indian independence, news floats in that electricity may arrive. Life flickers between hope and frustration, humor the only constant.

SYNOPSIS
Far from the mainland and mainstream consciousness, in a region ridden with uncertainties, Tora is a quaint village with bad roads, erratic transport service, a dysfunctional school, no hospital, no power supply, no mobile network and no job opportunities.

The film invites us to experience the life of the people, evenings spent in darkness intercepted by small solar lamps. When they hear that electricity may arrive, they are hardly excited. They have been let down too often. The film follows the long, complex, and bizarre story of how electricity makes its way here.

Over a period of three years spanning the electrification process and beyond, the film will follow the lives of three characters:

Jasmine is a feisty woman trying to make a place for herself in a deeply patriarchal society. She is keen for her children to get a good education and sends them to a boarding school, but she can barely afford it. She anxiously awaits electricity as she dreams of buying a refrigerator and setting up a small snack-stall in Tora.

The supporting characters are Ashang, the young city-bred lawyer and Village Chief who wants to establish himself as a leader who can get things done; and Khamrang, the 96-year-old who believes that nothing will change.

The film alternates between the lives of the people and the electricity work, two threads that move together; the aspirations of people chafed by the apathy of officials, and the haphazard and absurd process of electrification. When will electricity arrive in Tora? Will it stay and transform people’s lives? The film waits to see.

Awards & Grants: Best Pitch, Docedge-Kolkata; Best Asian Project, Docs Port Incheon; Catapult Film Fund Grant; Bertha Foundation Production grant; Momentum Grant

PROJECT TYPE Documentary Feature

DIRECTOR Anupama Srinivasan & Anirban Dutta
PRODUCER Anirban Dutta