Coming to NYC’s Cinema Village this Friday, March 29: THE REVOLUTIONARY OPTIMISTS
Maren R Monsen and Nicole Newnham’s exploration of the impact of empowering India’s children made its world premiere at the International Film Festival of India in Goa. It previously won a special sustainability award through the Sundance Institute and screened earlier this month at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s Art of the Real series. After its NYC theatrical release this week, the film will expand to Los Angeles’ Laemmle Santa Monica theatre next month.
In the slums of Kolkata, India, Amlan Ganguly’s NGO, Prayasam, tackles myriad poverty-related issues through its army of empowered youth. Believing that the secret to making things happen is to get to the children before they are forced by circumstance to repeat the cycle of poverty that their parents have been stuck in, Prayasam seeds the potential for actual change through them to affect their communities. Over several years, Monsen and Newnham profile a number of Amlan’s child leaders, working as agents of change, including Salim and Sikha, who spearhead a polio vaccination awareness campaign, as well as a mapping project to get attention and better water access for their community; Kajal, a pre-teen forced to work full-time as a brickmaker until Prayasam helps her secure an education through some savvy dealmaking with her employer; and Priyanka, an aspiring dancer and dance instructor at Prayasam whose parents threaten to marry her off, which could end her dreams. The film shifts from character to character nicely, providing a panoramic, and hopeful, view of the possibility of social change through education and the investment in children’s development.
what (not) to doc 