Kalasam, Indian Stories on Microcredit

original title:

Kalasam, Storie Indiane di Microcredito

country:

Italy

year:

2007

film run:

28'

format:

colour

status:

Ready (14/09/2007)

festivals & awards:

Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India, Menaxi Temple: bramin steps, mantras to Shiva, Hindu devotion. Madurai slum, brick factory, stone cave: young women carrying awful weighs: on Parvati sorrowful voice. These are the migrated people from the village, in search of new source of income. In a rural area, there is an alternative to migration. A woman and her daughter start the day bathing on a little lake, a new day. A portrait of the beauty of the rural life and a journey in the women's activities. As an alternative from moneylender politics, women organised themselves gathering money founds to be borrowed on turn, to face hard times or to start small enterprises at the village, still on wages base: this is the core of micro credit. In the countryside north Madurai. A dress making: the girls can sew on sewing machine their saree blouses. Mother and daughter prepare mango pickles. A sugar cane field, the juice is processed and boiled with a fire burning the waste. The rice is cultivated then separated from the fibre that animal can eat, and pre cooked to be stored for one season. A village is totally devoted to palm leaves weaving: the large family gathers every morning around the trees and the leaves. While the rope is created from the fibre of the coconut. The rhythm of a little hammer resound in the tamarind scent: the fruit are prepared and weight In another village medicinal plant are picked up: the sacred neem glues the women and their families. Deep south, in Srilanka direction, the sea near the shore is a field : the seaweed are picked up and cultivated day by day to grow under the sun The day has gone: in the temple the Brahmins are still celebrating the god.