Zameer

About the Film

The film, “Zameer” (The Voice of Conscience), is built around the experiences of women who were drawn into movements of resistance as they have unfolded in India since the new millennium and were jailed for their participation in movements defending lands, livelihoods and ways of living that were being eroded since the turn of the millennium. As lands, forests and sea coasts are turned into battlegrounds for “development” women are drawn into movements to defend their right to their homelands, their own histories and their own understanding of an organic way of being. Jailed for their activities women experience violence from the prison system but they also find solidarities and deep friendships created and sustained in the time of incarceration which become life-long bonds.

About the Director

Uma Chakravarti, a lifelong history teacher, seamlessly transitioned into filmmaking post-retirement, driven by her deep interest in history and archiving women's narratives. The serendipitous discovery of a unique archive, fragments preserved in a steel trunk by a woman on the fringes of the national movement, birthed the film "A Quiet Little Entry" (2010). Uma's written work spans Gender, Caste, Buddhism, everyday lives, early Indian history, and the 19th century. Since 1984, her commitment to oral history, triggered by the violence against Sikhs, resulted in the co-authored book "The Delhi Riots: Three days in the Life of a Nation" with Nandita Haksar. Uma's films echo her enduring dedication to narrating history from marginalized perspectives.