Leaving Home
Grantmakers, please click the link below to request additional information about this project or to invite the project manager to submit a formal application to your foundation.
Contact the project managers >>
Leaving_Home_excerpts.flv
Topics
Economy: Business
Human Development: Agriculture, Children, Education, Land, Population, Poverty, Social Exclusion, Youth
Human Rights: Sexuality, Social Exclusion
Information & Media: Media
Politics: Ethics & Value Systems
Project Geography
International: Asia
Identity Niches
Asian, Children, Student, Women, Youth/Teen
Budget
Raised to date: $ 65,000.00
Estimate to complete: $ 100,000.00
Total Estimated Budget: $ 165,000.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 04/30/2009
Status
Post Production
Media Type
Video
Project End Use
TV
Key Personnel
Robert Richter
Producer/Director
Robert Richter is a veteran documentary producer who received a 2008 National Emmy for "exceptional merit in nonfiction filmmaking." He has been honored with three Oscar nominations for best documentary short, three duPont Columbia Broadcast Journalism awards (TV's Pulitzer Prize), a Distinguished Science Reporting award from AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science), and many other U.S. and international awards. His website www.RichterVideos.com describes him and his work in further details.
Dr. Michael Mahar
Anthropologist
Dr. Mahar has been intermittently living in and studying the village and its residents for over a half century. He is the author of a book about untouchables and many articles about life in rural India. He taught anthropology at the University of Arizona for over 40 years and is now a Professor Emeritus there.
Alan Jacobsen
Cinematographer
Alan Jacobsen is an accomplished cinematographer whose most recent work was just screened at Sundance. He has shot several films for the producer/director of "Renu Leaving Home" as well as for many other independent documentary and fictional filmmakers.
Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)
When completed we plan to:
- submit it to major festivals such as Sundance and Toronto
- submit it to festivals that focus on ethnographic films
- submit it to festivals that focus on women's issues
- arrange for it to be screened at special conferences that focus on South Asia and anthropology
- offer it to public television
- offer it to cable channels that focus on India
- submit it for critical review by publications that focus on videos in general and those that specifically focus on the subject
- arrange for distribution to colleges, libraries and interest groups that have interest in South Asia, anthropology, women's issues
- prepare distribution materials such as postcards, to be sent to college professors who teach anthropology, South Asian studies and women's issues
- arrange for distribution through New Day Films (the producer is a member) or other educational distribution outlets, as well as arranging for distribution through Amazon and Reframe Media (the producer has 20 films on their website)
- arrange for a website to be designed and installed on the internet that specifically highlights the film
- include it in the website now on the internet which is a comprehensive listing and description of the video's producer/director (www.RichterVideos.com)
- arrange for distribution via Tribeca Reframe and Amazon (the producer now had 20 other films available through these internet providers
Funders
| Name | Amount | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bydale Foundation | $ 5,000.00 | 01/01/2008 | |
| Individual donors | $ 30,000.00 | 01/01/2006 | |
| Individual donors | $ 30,000.00 | 01/01/2005 |
Location(s)
330 West 42 Street
New York, 10036
See Google Maps
Short Synopsis
A long form documentary focusing on the conflict in a rural village in India between tradition and the "modern" world, as seen through the life of a teenage girl and her extended family, with the help of an American anthropologist who has been intermittently living in and studying the village for over 50 years.
Description/Treatment
More than ten percent of the entire world’s population lives in rural villages in India: 700 million people. This is a long form documentary about one of these villages, typical of many in northern India today. It is a village catapulting from a medieval to a modern community, caught between conservative traditions and today’s technology and values.
Through the villagers’ lives — especially teenager Renu and the women in her extended family — we document a moving and human story that involves the roles of women and men, caste traditions and rituals. No men were present when one of our camera team--a woman--and a woman interpreter spoke to women who spoke about subjects they would never discuss with men present.
Mike Mahar, a colorful American anthropologist who has intermittently been living in and studying the village for over fifty years, provides sometimes shocking, sometimes humorous insights and access to virtually every one and every place in the village, from untouchables to upper caste members. With a woman as one of our camera team and a woman interpreter, we were able to film women with no men present, discussing subjects they would never talk about with men watching and listening.
"Leaving Home" documents important and warmly human information about how an enormous number of people live in a part of the world that has become a major economic power, and the challenges faced by young people who are torn between tradition and the cultural demands of the world they are learning about through television and other modern communication.
Over 100 hours of footage was shot in the village by four camera people, intermittently over a four year period. Additionally, we have access to a 30-minute film of the village made 50 years ago, when Mahar was first living and studying there (he recalls that he helped carry the tripod once in a while). Our footage and clips from the old film are now edited down to approximately 85 minutes, intermixing Renu's moving story with the lives of untouchables, upper caste villagers, a village wedding, ritual practices, revealing stories by women speaking to women, and colorful anecdotes by Mahar.
When we began the project our idea was to focus on "then and now," how the village has changed over the years Mike has been living in and studying it. But soon after we arrived we discovered that what has not changed is in some ways more humanly compelling, as the traditions of the village clash with the modern world.
To finish this production we need to complete our fine cut, adding music, do a sound mix and online our low resolution edited fine cut to high resolution, suitable for telecasts and other distribution.
Grants can be made out and mailed to Public Media, Inc., a 501(c)(3) that serves as fiscal administrator for our and other independent media projects. Public Media, Inc: 330 West 42nd Street/Suite 2410, New York NY 10036.