From Bollywood to Brum
Social landlords have been stretching the boundaries of their remit for years, but when Mumbai-based filmmaker Avantika Hari contacted Birmingham landlord Ashram Housing Association in 2007 about collaborating on a movie, the sector went a step further and dipped its toe into Bollywood.
‘I emailed [Ashram] out of the blue,’ Ms Hari recalls. ‘Then I visited them on a trip to the UK, they looked at the script, and after that they never said no to anything I asked them for.’
The film in question was completed last year. For those of you reading this at the National Housing Federation conference in Birmingham, there’s a chance to hear the director talk all about it.
Land Gold Women is the story of a British Indian family from Birmingham. The relationship between the daughter and her white British boyfriend divides her family with tragic consequences. ‘The title comes from a code - it’s an Urdu phrase,’ explains Ms Hari. ‘It says that people kill to protect three things: land, gold and women.’
It might seem counterintuitive for a filmmaker living in Mumbai to travel to western Europe to shoot a film about honour crimes. Ms Hari was born in Mumbai 29 years ago before moving to Dubai aged eight with her parents. In 2004 she moved to London to spend two years studying at the London Film School before returning to India. She has, she says, a ‘strong connection’ to the UK. ‘London is very close to my heart - I would love to live and work there,’ she says.
But her affection for the UK is not the reason that the film is set in this country. The first time that honour crimes came to her attention, Ms Hari says, was not in her native India, or the Arab country of her youth, but while she was living in the UK capital. The film itself has certainly resonated with audiences here.
‘Everywhere we have shown the film people come out crying,’ Ms Hari says. ‘We know people connect with it very strongly and we know that it is powerful enough to move people to do that. So that’s the kind of response we have been getting.’
That honour killings occur in the UK is undisputed, but why set the story in Birmingham?
There was, Ms Hari says, a ‘variety of reasons’ for picking the UK’s second city. ‘It offered a very nice juxtaposition between old and new, which was very in keeping with the film. I liked the idea of a city trying to reinvent itself from an industrial town, to a more modern cultural metropolis. That’s what my family [in the film] is trying to do - to redefine itself.’
So where does a Midlands housing association come into it?
Victim support
Ashram became involved during some preliminary research. ‘I wanted access to victims, so I Googled honour crimes and the first thing that opened up was Ashram because of its work with honour crime victims,’ Ms Hari recalls.
‘The staff were incredibly helpful - they put me in touch with victims - it was amazing the kind of support they lent. Once they knew what we were doing they were very keen to offer us any kind of help they could.’
Ashram provides accommodation and support to victims of what its chief executive, Jas Bains, terms ‘so-called honour crimes’.
Staff at the midlands landlord, which calls itself an inter-cultural agency, handle up to 400 cases involving some element of an honour crime each year. They provide victim support services - for example resettling victims in safe homes - as well as 16 emergency accommodation units.
Mr Bains is a huge supporter of the film, but remembers some initial suspicion: ‘I had an email from [co-producer] Vivek [Agrawal]. I was a little sceptical - it’s not every day we are contacted by Bollywood.’
A conversation with the producers and a look at the script began to allay those fears. ‘Their research showed that this is going on in every major country in the world.
‘There is a perception that it’s a problem in some communities and not others - that it’s a sub-continental issue - but it’s not,’ Mr Bains says. ‘They were able to document that this happens worldwide.’
The admiration is mutual. ‘[Ashram] was instrumental - the support they have offered has been absolutely fundamental. And the work they do in the field is amazing,’ Ms Hari says. ‘When I met the victims I could tell how much Ashram had helped in rehabilitating them and trying to get them back into living and working in everyday society. We were really happy to be able to collaborate with them.’
Mr Bains says he agreed to help only after he was sure that the filmmakers would remain involved with the association.
Ms Hari sounds a little indignant when I ask if the relationship between her team and Ashram has persisted.
‘Yes, until today - that’s why I am going to the [National Housing Federation] conference,’ she says. ‘They literally have been the biggest supporters of the film.’
Global appeal
The film’s message has been well received elsewhere, too. ‘We had a screening in New Delhi a few weeks ago,’ Ms Hari says. ‘We were supported by a very big Indian women’s organisation that works to raise awareness of these issues. I had a screening in Dubai and, again, I was offered a lot of support.’
So far, however, the screening audiences’ positive reactions have not translated into a general release.
Ms Hari and her producer are trying to change this, currently dividing their time between securing a distributor for Land Gold Women and working on new projects. Asked what the latter are, she claims it is too early to say.
She faces the dilemma of many young filmmakers: ‘I would have to make one commercial film to fund my passion for making issue-based films, so I have to strike that balance in my career,’ she laughs. ‘If we can find a distributor sensitive enough to take this film out to the general public, I definitely think it can raise awareness.’
Ms Hari is convinced that the film, which stars BBC drama Spooks’ Hassani Shapi, has global appeal. ‘I believe it has a big market - it’s now about finding the right person to take it over,’ she says.
‘It’s an issue that, because it is about family, anyone around the world can connect to. The characters in the film are incredibly real and they have incredibly real problems. I would not be surprised if we find audiences where we never thought we would, because of the kind of film that it is.’
Avantika Hari, Jas Bains and Vivek Agrawal will discuss and show clips of the film at the NHF conference at 4.45pm on Thursday, 24 September
A question of honour?
As many as 5,000 women a year worldwide are murdered for bringing ‘dishonour’ on their families, according to the United Nations Population Fund. The Crown Prosecution Service believes about 12 women are victims of these crimes in the UK each year.
In a report to the Commission on Human Rights in 2000, Asma Jahangir, the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, claimed honour killings were on the rise internationally.
‘The perpetrators of these crimes are mostly male family members of the murdered women, who go unpunished or receive reduced sentences on the justification of having murdered to defend their misconceived notions of “family honour”,’ she wrote.
Ms Jahangir’s report acknowledged that such crimes were more prevalent in Muslim countries, although Islamic leaders have condemned the practice. She added that honour killings have been reported across the globe in countries as far-flung as Brazil, Sweden, Israel, India, Uganda and the UK.
Webb does a Wossy
Sarah Webb, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Housing, attended the Land Gold Women premiere earlier this year. Here is her verdict…
‘When it finished I sat in silence for a few minutes trying to make sense of what I’d seen. The film leaves you with 101 unanswerable questions, but the most important thing it does is raise the issue of honour killings. There is still a lot more work needed to understand this issue - and to think about our collective role in response. I would encourage everyone to see it, but to be prepared to feel dreadful at the end.’
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