Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 15:39:53 -0500 (EST)
From: "Cyberdiva (a.k.a \"Radhika Gajjala\")" <rxgst6+-AT-pitt.edu>
Subject: Rutgers screening of "When Women Unite" (fwd)



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 14:32:18 -0500 (EST)
From: Maya Yajnik <yajnik-AT-gaia.cs.umass.edu>
Reply-To: postcolonial-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
To: postcolonial-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU
Subject: Rutgers screening of "When Women Unite"


RIGSA and IPACA of Rutgers University

                        Present

                    WHEN WOMEN UNITE

        Date : Sunday Nov 24, 1996
        Time : 6 pm
        Venue: Trayes Hall, Douglas Student Center
                Douglas Campus, Rutgers University

Directions:
(1) From  Garden State Parkway : Take Exit 129 to NJ TPK and follow (2).
(2) From NJ  TPK : Take Exit 9 (to Rutgers University) and
follow signs to Douglas and Cook Campus. This leads to George Street. Once
on George Street, at the second light make a left and park.

Two Indian women film makers, Nata Duvvury and Shabnam Virmani are
currently in the U.S. with their new film called "When Women Unite: The
Story of an Uprising". Nata Duvvury will be present at the Rutgers
screening of the film.

The film narrates the incredibly moving story of the anti-arrack
(state-supplied distilled liquor) movement that led to the eventual ban of
arrack sales in Andhra Pradesh in 1995.  The movement started when a group
of women participating in a literacy program started questioning their
oppressed status.  Spurred into action by the killing of a village woman
(who was beaten to death by her drunk husband when she tried to prevent
him from molesting their daughter), they took on the men of the village,
the powerful arrack contractors, and the repressive state machinery in a
valiant struggle that demanded a stop to the endless supply of arrack to
their village (the only village tap dispensed water once in two days while
the arrack shop received its supplies twice a day).  The movement took
hold and spread across the state over a period of four hard-fought years. 
It was a true grass-roots movement; even today it has no identifiable
leaders. The movie documents the incredible courage of these women, their
political and social consciousness and their steady realization that,
through struggle, they could control their own destiny. The story ends on
a note of such high hope that it chokes you. By the end of the film, you
don't know whether to cry or whoop in delight.  It is a rare story of
faith, commitment and most importantly in these times, of success. It is a
story that needs telling and retelling. 

         -- Srikanth Bollam (verma-AT-mars.superlink.net)



     --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---