SUMMER 2007

A part of 39th International Film Festival of India - 2008 Film - SUMMER 2007

Summer 2007 explores, with deep humanism, the coming together of India’s cool, happening youth with the Agrarian Crisis that is threatening to spiral out of control.

Five friends from India’s buoyant upper middle class, studying in a capitation fee medical college, are leading an insulated life facilitated by their parent’s economic potency. Their problems of love, sex, girlfriends, exams, and ego spice up their blissful existence. The fact that they are studying to be doctors and will be part of the healthcare scenario, a key element in any nation’s development, is of no consequence to them. They are just flowing with the tide, in a cocooned existence.

Then, a few days of rural medical training in a Vidarbha village caught in extreme poverty and farmer suicides, proves cataclysmic. The friends are suddenly confronted with an India they’ve never really seen. And they’re appalled by what they witness: Predatory money lenders preying on the farmers; Healthcare in a shambles… Living is the most arduous battle for them all. Giving up life is an easier option.

Reluctantly, they are now forced to seek answers to just one question: Why is India’s progress so lopsided? Each friend reacts differently to the situation. One comes to terms with reality, one has a change of heart, one becomes bitter, one falls in love, and one puts his life on the line - for others.

TAARE ZAMEEN PAR

Ishaan Awasthi is an eight-year-old whose world is filled with wonders that no one else seems to appreciate: colours, fish, dogs and kites are just not important in the world of adults who are much more interested in things like homework, marks and neatness.

Ishaan just cannot seem to get anything right in class. And so he gets into far more trouble than his parents can handle, and is packed off to a boarding school to be ‘disciplined’. Things are no different at this new school, and Ishaan has to contend with the added trauma of separation from his family.

One day Ram Shankar Nikumbh bursts onto the scene. This new Art Teacher infects the students with joy and optimism. He breaks all the rules of ‘how things are done’ by asking them to think, dream and imagine, and all the children respond with enthusiasm - all except Ishaan. Nikumbh soon realises that Ishaan is not happy being at school, and sets out to discover why. With time, patience and care, he ultimately helps Ishaan find himself.