Directed by Rachana Prasad, ‘I’m Enough’ is a short film revolving around social biases about people with visual impairment. The film concludes with how they can overcome the challenges.
The film was a fruit of a year-long workshop on professional development and theatre. Rachana runs an NGO called Chiranthana for children with special needs and disabilities, mainly intellectual disabilities like autism and Down syndrome. During the Covid 19 lockdown, she collaborated with Help the Blind Foundation for the workshops.
“People with disabilities are not exposed to story writing and scripting. So I started training them on how to build a story, what characterisation means, and how one can write a screenplay,” she explains. The students then collectively came up with the concept of the film.
Rachana has directed about 35 productions and taken them to venues in Bengaluru and surrounding villages. ‘Bharath Diaries’, ‘Ganga and Her friends’, ‘Man the Saviour’, ‘Bhalle Casa’, ‘Dhruva’, ‘Bala Vikasa’, ‘Sattavaru Yaaru’ are among them. ‘Muslim in the Midst’ is one of her popular plays in which she worked with adults.
‘I’m Enough’ was screened at the International Purple Fest 2024 in Goa. The film was made in Tamil because most of the students at Chiranthana came from Coimbatore and are Tamil speaking. After the first screening at Suchitra Film Society, Bengaluru, she decided to dub it in Kannada.
Challenges
“A neurotypical actor backed out at the last minute because he didn’t want to act with a blind girl,” says Rachana. A director to whom the film was assigned backed out two days before the shoot. A blind girl who was to play the lead backed out on the day of the shoot because she had to get married on screen, and her father did not want that. The girl later played a supporting role.
“There were so many such challenges, and that is why it is so close to my heart,” she says.
Deccan Herald is on WhatsApp Channels| Join now for Breaking News & Editor's Picks