At present she is all set to screen her movie at the 13^th World Conference on Tobacco Control at DC in July, as a guest at The American University. Part of this note was published in the Hindustan Times.

For many seventeen would be a tender age to move out of Coffee Cafe  Day, endless chatting on the mobile with friends or the latest melodrama at a multiplex. But this young girl, Shweta Sharma, who just completed her school, has some serious business at hand.

She has completed a documentary film that is also on a serious topic 'anti tobacco'.

Her film speaks volumes about her talent and throws a challenge before society. Those who have wateched the documentary are all praises for this budding filmmaker.

"At school she is a brat, funky with friends. But this quirky creature has made a different place for herself" One of her friends commented for Shweta, the youngest filmmaker in town.

Shweta is just out of St Dominic College and so is her documentary 'DARPAN' on quitting smoking. The 14 minutes film encompasses all what is there in the work on major filmmakers.

A distinctive script, able and relevant narration, perfect selection of location and figures to support the topic. Her work resembles famous filmmaker Anand Patwardhan.

Least but not the last, all this was done during her studies for Class 12th Board Examinations and it took no less than two months for Shweta to get through her first film.

"First I did a rigorous study of the anti-tobacco rules, its impact on human health and what all was done by the government up till now. The second job was to select a script and thirdly it was to work" the young filmmaker says.

Surprisingly, Shweta's only tool to make a movie was a 'still camera' and not a movie camera. She took her camera from city's noted anti tobacco activist Bobby Ramakant. It allows only 30 seconds of video recording and she had to capture hours of shooting!

"I used to shoot for few seconds and rush back to load that on the laptop. The process was repeated till the scene was complete and then the same was done for the next scene or interview of the experts" Shweta narrated her style of working.

At present she is all set to screen her movie at the 13th World Conference on Tobacco Control in July at Washington DC. She would be a guest at the American University. But before that she would translate her first film into English and several other languages.

"My mission is to screen this film in most of the places where print media is either inaccessible or people are illiterate. First I made it in Hindi so that the common Indian man could understand and now, I am ready to take it global" says the young filmmaker.

Daughter of a businessman, Shweta says her inclination towards anti-tobacco campaign came from the fact that some people known to her suffered great health loss because of this.

Accounting is her favourite subject at school and she is willing to go for further studies in economics.

But filmmaking remains an integral part for this resident of Motinagar locality.

To take her mission ahead, she plans a second part of her 'DARPAN'.

The 14 minute film is about deceptive tobacco promotion in India, and is in Hindi and English. It exposes deceptive tobacco promotion, tobacco hazards, surrogate advertising, tobacco control Act and violations of the parliamentary Act (The Cigarette and other Tobacco Products Act 2003) in India.

DARPAN is a response to a growing need perceived for a visual documentation of tobacco hazards, deceptive tobacco promotion in India, tobacco control policies and their reckless violations and also to draw parallels to deceptive product promotion strategies adopted by alcohol majors in India despite of a blanket ban on advertising, of alcohol as well as tobacco products.

Tobacco corporations have known that tobacco kills and causes cancer since decades (Academy award winning team's documentary MAKING A KILLING exposed documents recovered from World's largest tobacco company Philip Morris' offices in USA). They have knowingly promoted, rather deceptively promoted a product that is directly associated to an array of life threatening diseases including cancers and heart diseases. Their tobacco advertising and promotion has surreptitiously linked tobacco use to glamour and lifestyle imagery in the developing fertile minds of our children and youth. The real face of tobacco hazards, is often under-reported and tobacco continues to be perceived as low-risk.

Not only tobacco companies but even pharmaceutical companies and healthcare industry thrive on profits generated from gory world of diseases, disabilities and deaths attributed to tobacco use.

In India, despite of a blanket ban on alcohol advertising, alcohol companies continue to aggressively promote their products in the garb of soda water, bottled water, CD, cassettes, cricket etc (surrogate advertising). After The Cigarette and other Tobacco Products Act came into effect on May 31, 2003, tobacco companies too have resorted to aggressive tobacco promotion surrogately. ITC opened up more than 250 readymade garment stores (Wills Lifestyle Stores), Gold Flake tour packages and Red and White bravery awards are other examples of surrogate tobacco promotion.

It is in people's interest to be vigilant about the politics of profit, perpetrated by corporations. Economic power ultimately rests with the people. Each penny these corporations have accumulated comes from our own people. It is in our interest to make the right choice of exercising economic boycott of their products if we believe they are duping us and influencing minds of our children and youth. These corporations need to be held accountable for knowingly duping and addicting our people. Our people need to be more vigilant and join in the struggle to enforce people's interest policies and frameworks.
For more information please contact: bobbyramakant@yahoo.com

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Posted by collective at June 12, 2006 08:57 AM