Films
LAKSHMI & ME
Australian Premiere
Lakshmi & Me
Australian Premiere
India/Denmark/Finland/USA 2007, English, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil with English Subtitles, 59 mins
Director(s)/Writer(s): Nishtha Jain
Producer(s): Smiriti Nevatia
Genre: Documentary
Film Website: www.lakshmiandme.com
Themes: Women's rights, class, equality, discrimination
Related Links: http://www.oxfam.org.au/world/sthasia/india/
International Documentary Festival Amsterdam 2007 - Official Selection, Silver World Award Nomination
Indian Documentary Producers Association 2008 - Golden Award for Best Documentary
Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2008 - Official selection
Synopsis
There are 40 million domestic "servants" in India paid practically nothing to slave for those who comparatively have everything.
Nishtha - a wealthy, educated Indian filmmaker - begins making a film with her maid, Lakshmi, who lives a precarious life balancing everything from forbidden love to an alcoholic father and debilitating illness. During a year and a half of dramatic changes, the two women's lives are drawn together in ways they could never have imagined.
But how will they negotiate the ingrained social hierarchies and cultural attitudes that govern their lives? And how can Nishtha answer Laksmi's question "what sin did I commit to be born a woman?"
"The film brilliantly explores the symbiotic roles of mistress and maid, filmmaker and subject, speaker and listener, to raise key global issues as diverse as the politics of domesticity, gender and class relations, ethics, and documentary. Lakshmi & Me challenges a new generation of feminists to ask how those women who have been invited to sit at the table can allow other women to remain seated on the floor" —Full Frame Documentary Film Festival
