Mumbai, Apr 27 (PTI) In 2024, ten women from working-class neighbourhoods in Mumbai participated in a smartphone-based filmmaking experiment that centred on their lives and everyday happenings.
Two years later, the community-driven film, “Mast Mahila Mandali” (Cool Ladies Club), has found its way to a special screening at iconic Regal Cinema, scheduled for April 28, marking a significant moment in community-led documentary filmmaking. “Mast Mahila Mandali” (Cool Ladies Club), the film documents the makers’ own lives, struggles and lived realities, will premier before 1,200 viewers.
The women, Anjum Sheikh, Darshana Maykar, Gauri Rane, Kavita Khonme, Nazneen Siddiqui, Rohini Kadam, Rehana Sheikh, Sheetal Navle, Kavita Ghughe and Vaishali Mane, have co-produced the project and decided independently how to represent themselves on screen.
The women are associated with NGO, CORO India, and are part of its ‘Right to Pee’ campaign. The organisation has worked in Maharashtra and Rajasthan for 38 years on community-based initiatives.
“This is a milestone in our organisation’s history. Women from these communities are screening a film they have made themselves in a historic theatre. They are not here as subjects, but as creators,” said Supriya Jaan, CORO’s head of grassroots knowledge initiatives and executive producer of the film.
The film has emerged from a two-year learning and training process led by Shilpa Gulati, a National Award-winning filmmaker and professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
“Regal Cinema is a fitting venue to bring a film made in Mumbai back to its people. Documentary distribution in India faces several challenges, and this is an attempt to overcome them. A screening of this scale and nature has not been attempted before,” said Gulati, who has also co-directed and edited the film.
More than 1,000 people have already registered for the special screening, and organisers expect a full house.
Family members of the filmmakers, residents of their neighbourhoods, grassroots leaders, representatives from the development sector, academics and members of Mumbai’s film fraternity will attend the event. PTI ND NSK
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