Suma Josson is an

Indian-American Indian Americans or Indo-Americans are citizens of the United States with ancestry from India. The United States Census Bureau uses the term Asian Indian to avoid confusion with Native Americans, who have also historically been referred to ...

journalist and filmmaker. Her

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

''Niyamgiri, You are still alive'', on the ecological and human damage done by

bauxite Bauxite is a sedimentary rock with a relatively high aluminium content. It is the world's main source of aluminium and gallium. Bauxite consists mostly of the aluminium minerals gibbsite (Al(OH)3), boehmite (γ-AlO(OH)) and diaspore (α-AlO ...

mining, won a first prize in the Short Film, Environment category at the 2010 International Film Festival of India.

Life

She was born in

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

, India and graduated in English Literature from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

, United States. She began her career as a journalist at

Press Trust of India The Press Trust of India Ltd., commonly known as PTI, is the largest news agency in India. It is headquartered in New Delhi and is a nonprofit cooperative among more than 500 Indian newspapers. It has over 500 full-time employees , including abo ...

, and in 1992 switched over to the visual media. She has made a number of

s. She has published three books: ''Poems and Plays'', ''A Harvest of Light'' (a collection of plays), and ''Circumferences'' (a novel). Her debut film was ''Janmadhinam'' which won three state awards, and was screened at various international film festivals including the 1999 Berlin Festival. She was one of the five women filmmakers commissioned to make a documentary Trading Images on the subject 'women's space' in a German international coproduction. ''Saree'' is her second feature film.

Films

1998 – Janmadinam (The Birthday) - Malayalam

Sarasu has come to the hospital to deliver her baby. Amma, her mother, is with her, to assist her. The actual time-span of the film is a single night which the mother and the daughter spend at the hospital. Sarasu, a TV-reporter working in Bombay, keeps a diary into which she pours her inner-most feelings. We find out that Sarasu was forced by her father to marry Raghu, although she was in love with Ajay, a cameraman. A few months after her marriage, she passes through Bombay to join her husband. On the way, she meets Ajay in his flat. This is during the '1993 communal violence in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second-m ...

. In the aftermath of this meeting, Sarasu is finally forced to make a choice. And Amma realizes that she also has to take a stand, as a result of Sarasu's choice. It is this unspoken, unseen, subtle tension between mother and daughter, and a slow psychological unfolding of the personal histories of the main characters, which form the content of this film. * Direction & Screenplay: Suma Josson * Cast: Nandita Das, Surekha Sikhri * Cinematography: Hari Nair * Music: Narayana Mani

1999 – ''Saree'' - Malayalam

Two children, Gita and Radha, are stranded in the no man's land between two worlds that dominate contemporary childhood: school and home. This in-between land is one of myriad dreams, fears, and fantasies all yearning to take the shape of a free fluid space where children can summon whichever spirit they like. The two young friends are on their way back from the school as they recount their dreams in this subliminal space available only to childhood. Saree was selected for the 1999 Berlin Festival, and in 2000 it was the inaugural film at the Mumbai International Film Festival in Mumbai. * Direction & Screenplay: Suma Josson * Cast: : Remya, Krishna, Nedumudi Venu, Sreelatha, Priyanka * Cinematography: M J Radhakrishnan, K G Jayan * Editing: Bina * Music: Chandran Veyattumal

Gujarat: A Laboratory Of Hindu Rastra, Fascism

Set in the post-Godhra violence which was unleashed in

Gujarat Gujarat (, ) is a state along the western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the fifth-largest Indian state by area, covering some ; and the ninth ...

during February 2002, this film examines the extent to which the fascist ideologies of the communal forces have infiltrated into the sub-conscious of an ordinary Gujarati Hindu. 2003 / documentary / 50 min / English subtitles

References