Information meets Animation

Ever since,the filmmaker has been actively advocating the importance of RTI. Her latest step in this direction is a three-minute animation film,titled Chakravyuh,that has been produced by the Films Division of India and will be screened in theatres before the main feature film presentations.

“I have filed almost 100 RTIs so far and in these four years,I realised that a lot of misconceptions surround the subject. Most people think that it’s a tool only to unearth scams. I wanted to bring to people’s notice that it can also be used at a micro level where people can use it also to speed up applications for a passport or a ration card,” she says. With a fee of Rs 10,Desai views RTI as the way out of the chakravyuh (labyrinth) of corruption and bad governance.

The decision to use animation was organic,given Desai’s extensive experience in animation — she has been designing special effects for Mumbai’s Nehru Planetarium since 1997,conducts workshops on the subject at Pune’s Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). Her previous film Manpasand (2008) travelled the festival circuit,winning a bronze at the New York Film Festival. Also,she wanted to treat the serious subject of RTI in a light-hearted manner and she found the medium perfect for that.

“I have focused on people from different parts of the country — be it a widow from Goa seeking a compensation or a farmer in Bengal dealing with land encroachment. But the treatment of the film is unique in its use of bright colours and paper textures. For instance,the segment about a Lucknowi man has Urdu script running in the backdrop,” she says.

The first public screening of the film will be held on October 12 at the Indian Merchants Chambers to mark the seventh anniversary of the RTI. “Our country introduced RTI only in 2006 whereas the concept of freedom of information is hardly new in other countries across the world — Sweden introduced their version of RTI back in 1766. Today,close to 90 countries have an RTI equivalent as a means to tackle lack of accountability and transparency,” says Desai.