Documentary filmmakers often travel far and wide for themes and characters, but sometimes, they don’t have to look beyond their own kitchens for inspiration.
The family documentary, in which filmmakers invite the world into their homes to witness the exploration of a personal experience ‒ a wedding, a death, a house moving ‒ is a well-worn genre around the world, but it is remains deeply contentious. How much of what we see is unscripted and which bits are staged? What happens when family members start performing for the camera (a natural human instinct)? Or forget that they are being filmed and offload worries and fears best kept private? What is the line between observation and voyeurism? Did the family documentary create the groundwork for television shows such as Meet the Kardashians? Most importantly, why should we watch filmmakers rummage in their personal closets?
Such knotty questions have not prevented filmmakers around the globe from charging into the danger zone. Indian filmmakers have also sallied into this tricky territory. Some films turn the spotlight on their kin to generalise from a particular set of experiences (Samina Mishra’s The House on Gulmohar Avenue, Sandhya Suri’s I for India and Safina Uberoi’s My Mother India provide different accounts of typical Indian families living through decades of social and political change). Some films capture moments so personal they become automatically identifiable (In Miyar House, Ramachandra PN revisits a family home that is being torn down, while Avijit Mukul Kishore's Snapshots From a Family Album is a portrait of a family coping with periods of separation because of work engagements). The family documentary can help filmmakers revisit a chapter from the past that helps explain the present (Pankaj Rishi Kumar’s Kumar Talkies is the story of a cinema hall owned by his clan) or confront the loss of a parent (Ajay Noronha attempts to understand his father better in A Picture of You).
Some films pick fearlessly at scabs, such as Santana Issar’s Bare, in which she confronts her alcoholic father.
Cross-cultural relationship
Amma & Appa, which is being screened at the Mumbai Film Festival, puts on the screen a cross-cultural relationship as seen by families on either side of the divide. In 2011, a German woman named Franziska Schönenberger travelled to Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu along with her boyfriend Jayakrishnan Subramanian to meet his parents. The couple filmed the encounters, some of which are coloured by the disappointment of Subramanian’s parents at their son’s choice. Subramanian’s mother, in particular, articulates her resignation with honesty and clarity. “When you chose a love marriage, we lost everything,” she says.
Then, Schönenberger’s Bavarian parents arrive, packing local costumes along with gifts and goodwill for the elderly couple with whom they must build a lasting bond. “The entire shoot was quite stressful, as we had to be in front of the camera and to deal with both the parents,” Subramanian said in an email interview. “However they understood each other very well. We didn’t have a plan when Franziska came to visit my parents for the first time, but later we had an idea for what the parents could do together.”
Despite some of the thin-ice issues on display, Amma & Appa is an upbeat account, laced with popular Illaiyaraja songs and animated sequences. Both sets of parents sportingly go along with each other’s cultural preferences, and stop trying to second-guess the other after initial attempts. The film helped Subramanian’s parents share their feelings about his life choices, which they otherwise might not have been able to do, he said. “Both the parents were quite open and co-operative for the interview, especially my parents were happy with the fact that I have to listen to them in front of the camera,” Subramanian said.
Small crew
His parents initially thought he was working on a project for the film school at which he was enrolled, Schönenberger added. “However we had a small team and for Jay’s parents, it is easy to allow us to shoot, as it would be difficult for them to have a foreign woman with their son as a guest,” she said.
The documentary was premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, where many viewers related to the all-too-human anxieties displayed by the characters, said the filmmakers. “Even on our Facebook page, we are often getting messages from bi-national couples asking for our advice for their relationship, specifically if one of the partners is Indian,” they said.
The documentary ended on an upbeat note for its subjects. Schönenberger and Subramanian were married in Copenhagen in 2014, and they had a reception later in Tamil Nadu for 300 of his relatives and four members of the Schönenberger’s family.
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The family documentary, in which filmmakers invite the world into their homes to witness the exploration of a personal experience ‒ a wedding, a death, a house moving ‒ is a well-worn genre around the world, but it is remains deeply contentious. How much of what we see is unscripted and which bits are staged? What happens when family members start performing for the camera (a natural human instinct)? Or forget that they are being filmed and offload worries and fears best kept private? What is the line between observation and voyeurism? Did the family documentary create the groundwork for television shows such as Meet the Kardashians? Most importantly, why should we watch filmmakers rummage in their personal closets?
Such knotty questions have not prevented filmmakers around the globe from charging into the danger zone. Indian filmmakers have also sallied into this tricky territory. Some films turn the spotlight on their kin to generalise from a particular set of experiences (Samina Mishra’s The House on Gulmohar Avenue, Sandhya Suri’s I for India and Safina Uberoi’s My Mother India provide different accounts of typical Indian families living through decades of social and political change). Some films capture moments so personal they become automatically identifiable (In Miyar House, Ramachandra PN revisits a family home that is being torn down, while Avijit Mukul Kishore's Snapshots From a Family Album is a portrait of a family coping with periods of separation because of work engagements). The family documentary can help filmmakers revisit a chapter from the past that helps explain the present (Pankaj Rishi Kumar’s Kumar Talkies is the story of a cinema hall owned by his clan) or confront the loss of a parent (Ajay Noronha attempts to understand his father better in A Picture of You).
Some films pick fearlessly at scabs, such as Santana Issar’s Bare, in which she confronts her alcoholic father.
Cross-cultural relationship
Amma & Appa, which is being screened at the Mumbai Film Festival, puts on the screen a cross-cultural relationship as seen by families on either side of the divide. In 2011, a German woman named Franziska Schönenberger travelled to Cuddalore in Tamil Nadu along with her boyfriend Jayakrishnan Subramanian to meet his parents. The couple filmed the encounters, some of which are coloured by the disappointment of Subramanian’s parents at their son’s choice. Subramanian’s mother, in particular, articulates her resignation with honesty and clarity. “When you chose a love marriage, we lost everything,” she says.
Then, Schönenberger’s Bavarian parents arrive, packing local costumes along with gifts and goodwill for the elderly couple with whom they must build a lasting bond. “The entire shoot was quite stressful, as we had to be in front of the camera and to deal with both the parents,” Subramanian said in an email interview. “However they understood each other very well. We didn’t have a plan when Franziska came to visit my parents for the first time, but later we had an idea for what the parents could do together.”
Despite some of the thin-ice issues on display, Amma & Appa is an upbeat account, laced with popular Illaiyaraja songs and animated sequences. Both sets of parents sportingly go along with each other’s cultural preferences, and stop trying to second-guess the other after initial attempts. The film helped Subramanian’s parents share their feelings about his life choices, which they otherwise might not have been able to do, he said. “Both the parents were quite open and co-operative for the interview, especially my parents were happy with the fact that I have to listen to them in front of the camera,” Subramanian said.
Small crew
His parents initially thought he was working on a project for the film school at which he was enrolled, Schönenberger added. “However we had a small team and for Jay’s parents, it is easy to allow us to shoot, as it would be difficult for them to have a foreign woman with their son as a guest,” she said.
The documentary was premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, where many viewers related to the all-too-human anxieties displayed by the characters, said the filmmakers. “Even on our Facebook page, we are often getting messages from bi-national couples asking for our advice for their relationship, specifically if one of the partners is Indian,” they said.
The documentary ended on an upbeat note for its subjects. Schönenberger and Subramanian were married in Copenhagen in 2014, and they had a reception later in Tamil Nadu for 300 of his relatives and four members of the Schönenberger’s family.
