CMS Vatavaran 2006- 2nd Environment & Wildlife Traveling Film Festival

Title: A World of her Own
Language/ Duration/Year/ Format (DVD)/ Price: English/ 29 mins/ DVD Rs.1000

Summary: Film on women and their livelihood relations with natural resources. 80 percent of rural women are engaged in livelihoods depended on natural resources in India. This intense relationship, throws up a whole range of issues and questions. Does the policy recognize this intensity? Do we all at large value the knowledge systems, which may have developed among these women? How have women coped with coercion from state in their accessing of natural resources? This film tries to explore these questions through four focused engagements. The fisherwomen off the coast of Karnataka are today distraught and distressed. The fish catch on which they and their families have lived has gone down. The Apatani Women of Ziro, the North-Eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh have controlled their unique fish-paddy agriculture for many years. But the future of this agriculture is unsure. The adivasi (indigenous people) and dalit (lower castes) women of Kashipur, Eastern Indian state of Orissa have taken their fight over rights over Hill Broom, squarely into the courtyard of the state. And won!