A Valley Rises

Producer/director/cinematographer/

voice-over text/narrator: Ali Kazimi – Diary by: Susan Tolusso

November 1990: Filmmaker Ali Kazimi is in India shooting pickup shots for a National Film Board coproduction called A Song for Tibet and he hears about plans for a huge-scale protest march that is to take place in India’s Narmada Valley. The protest is set for Christmas time, organized by the tribes and other valley residents opposed to the building of a huge dam, a reservoir some 200 kilometers long, and a system of canals (which the government claims are to help transport Narmada River water 450 kilometers north to drought-prone regions), all of which the protesters say will force them off their lands.

December 1990: Kazimi is intrigued with the documentary possibilities of the march and, an Indian who only moved to Canada in 1983, begins considering filming the protest. On Dec. 19, he flies back to Canada. He quickly returns the nfb equipment, rents a Hi-8 camera and heads back to India.

Dec. 24, 1990: Back in India, Kazimi hooks up with a sound recordist and camera assistant. The trio drive to the Narmada Valley, 400 kilometers north of Bombay in central India.

‘We started shooting as soon as we arrived Christmas Eve,’ he says, adding these scenes would prove to be ‘one of the main sequences in the film.’

December 1990 to January 1991: The protest lasts five weeks in all. Before long, the movement of the 6,000 marchers brings them to the border between two states, Madhya Pradesh, where they started, and Gujarat, where they wanted to end up because that’s where the dam is being built.

Trouble and tension soon characterize the march at a standoff at the border because Gujarat state police and government officials are refusing to let the marchers cross the state line. ‘It was a very difficult shoot for us,’ says Kazimi. ‘We were harassed constantly (by the police), there was constant tension as to when we could shoot and when we couldn’t.’

The protest never does reach the dam, before it ends at the end of January. But the protesters realize their goal of bringing the issue and their opposition to the attention of the World Bank, an investor in the dam, and forcing the bank to review its investment, although the Indian government refuses to review the project.

Jan. 30, 1991: Kazimi returns to Toronto, broke and exhausted, with more than 60 hours of footage.

February 1991 to March 1994: Kazimi’s first grant, of great psychological importance, is $5,000 from the United Church of Canada.

November 1991: The Ontario Arts Council kicks in some $16,000 for more shooting in Canada and India, but tension in India prevents him from returning.

Fall 1992: Eventually, the Ontario Film Development Corporation’s non-theatrical fund contributes $15,000.

Summer 1993: Kazimi brings editor Steve Weslak on board. Weslak makes the case for creating a documentary out of the protest footage alone; Weslak and Kazimi cut a 15-minute promo, which is then sent to potential funders.

October 1993: Vision TV comes through with a $17,600 broadcast licence.

November 1993: Ontario Arts Council grants $23,000.

December 1993: Canada Council grants $25,000. On a roll, Kazimi returns to India for two weeks to update the story, which eventually forms the end of the film.

February 1994: Weslak and Kazimi begin editing.

March 1994: Telefilm Canada comes in for 40% of the production’s budget – about $67,000 of the $168,000 total.

May 1994: With the fine cut nearly done, Kazimi spends a month writing the narration. ‘Critical’ help comes from Arlene Moscovitch and Karen Tisch in editing the narrative.

Mid-June 1994: The picture is locked.

Early July 1994: Online, on Digital Betacam by Craig Gellner at Toronto’s Scene By Scene, is completed the night before Kazimi is to screen the film for the programmers at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Late July 1994: The Ontario Region of the nfb offers blowup to 16mm through its Program to Assist Filmmakers in the Private Sector.

Early August 1994: Mychael Danna, who has long worked with Indian music, synthesizes recorded tribal music, Indian classical vocals and instruments to generate a music track.

Aug. 15, 1994: Steve Munro at Trackworks in Toronto records the narration and finishes pulling together the sound edit. Next, Corby Luke at Sound Techniques does the overall mix.

September 13, 1994: Narmada: A Valley Rises has its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival. Great North Releasing is on board as foreign sales agent and non-theatrical distribution in Canada will be handled by Full Frame Film and Video Distribution.