By Yogesh Maitreya, TwoCircles.net,
Mumbai: Film promotions, and interactions with the media, at least in India, sees the movie’s producers and directors discuss the movie. But the case of ‘Court’, the movie nominated from India for the Oscars under the category of Foreign Films is slightly different. An Ambedkarite activist, a singer, a balladeer, and a playwright Sambhaji Bhagat has made the movie more meaningful through his lyrics, his idea behind casting for characters and his music.
Sambhaji Bhagat [Photo Credit, Daisy Katta]
Sambhaji says, “I look at the movie Court as I look at the movement. When this movie was being made, the people associated with the movie came to me at Siddharth Vihara, and we discussed many things and I have confirmed and clarified many things. I work with the things which involve some essence of movement of annihilation of caste or which proceed towards Ambedkarite vision. I aspire that through the medium of this movie, issues like of manual scavenging will be discussed on the international level.
When this movie was being made, I developed a concept and suggested that we shouldn’t get actors. We must get those people into movie who really gone through such experiences.’ This probably explains why the main lead actor of the movie, whose real name is Veera Sathidar, is a real-life Ambedkarite activist from Nagpur.
Sambhaji further adds, “They asked me for music and playback too. I used folk music in the movie. This folk is not the folk from popular culture, but from tribes and from those who are unknown to people. This folk music was rejected by popular culture here, but I used it in the movie. I have written the lyrics the way I wanted and composed my own music’
Talking about spreading Ambedkar to various countries, he says, “we must spread Ambedkar to other communities as well as other countries and we should look at using various mediums for this. Wherever I get chance at international level, I try to spread Ambedkar’s thoughts. We must take the movie ‘Court’ as an opportunity, to create awareness of such issues on international level.”