Under Construction - UC Films

English (subtitled), 52 min, 2009, India

This film explores the intricate connections between the land, people, animals and food; and takes an incisive look at policies that are dismantling these organic linkages, resulting in an artificial separation of livestock and agriculture.

Through conversations with livestock rearers and farmers in Andhra, Telangana and Maharashtra, the film exposes this unfolding tragedy, of dwindling livestock, destroyed livelihoods, acute indebtedness, polluted environments and unsafe food being increasingly produced under energy intensive industrial farming systems, which threatens sovereignty over our land, food and animals.

Livestock, which has always been integral to agriculture and small peasant food-farming systems in India, is rapidly being displaced from its crucial role in sustaining agriculture- providing energy, manure and as a vital source of livelihood and nutrition for a vast number of peasant households. In the process peasants and pastoralists are rapidly loosing control and being dispossessed of valuable indigenous animal genetic resources that they have nurtured through centuries. Losing their knowledge and self-reliance they are increasingly becoming dependent on corporate markets. The film seeks to draw attention to this reality and the process of dispossession.

Awards and Screenings

Selected Screenings:

Prasad Labs, Hyderabad, 2009
THATHYA – The Pulse of the Unsung Heroes, Hyderabad, 2010