Film and Its Use in Enlarging The Movement
Veteran film-maker Shyam Benegal, then an advertising executive whoed Manthan (the churning of the 'milk ocean'). Not able to finance it, Benegal was helped by Kurien who hit upon an idea of getting each of his half a million farmers to contribute a token two rupees for the making of the movie. Manthan hit a chord with the audience immediately when it was shown in Gujarat in 1976, which impressed distributors to release it before audiences, nationwide. It was critically acclaimed and went on to win national awards the following year and was later shown on television to the public.
The movie's success gave Kurien another idea. Like shown in the film, a vet, a milk technician and a fodder specialist who could explain the value of cross-breeding of milch cattle would tour other parts of the country along with the film's prints, to woo farmers there to create cooperatives of their own.
UNDP would use the movie to start similar cooperatives in Latin America.
Read more about this topic: Verghese Kurien
Famous quotes containing the words film, enlarging and/or movement:
“Perhaps our eyes are merely a blank film which is taken from us after our deaths to be developed elsewhere and screened as our life story in some infernal cinema or despatched as microfilm into the sidereal void.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“From infancy, a growing girl creates a tapestry of ever-deepening and ever- enlarging relationships, with her self at the center. . . . The feminine personality comes to define itself within relationship and connection, where growth includes greater and greater complexities of interaction.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)
“The preservation of life seems to be rather a slogan than a genuine goal of the anti-abortion forces; what they want is control. Control over behavior: power over women. Women in the anti-choice movement want to share in male power over women, and do so by denying their own womanhood, their own rights and responsibilities.”
—Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)