18th(2016)
Leeches
Payal SETHI
- India
- 2016
- World Premiere
- 27min
- DCP
- color
- Fiction
World Premiere
Sex Body Growth/Independence
SYNOPSIS
Raisa lives with her Ammi and three younger sisters in the ghettos of Hyderabad's Old City. When Ammi promises her 13-year old daughter, Zainab, in marriage to a foreign businessman, Raisa decides that she must save her little sister. She hatches a dangerous and irreversible plan involving an archaic remedy that promises to restore a girl's virginity.
Laisa lives in the slums of Hyderabad, India, with
her mother and three younger sisters. When Raisa
discovers that her mother is planning to marry Raisa\'s
13-year-old Zainab off to a foreign businessman as a
one-day bride because of money, Raisa is determined
to save her sister and devises a dangerous plan. The
ending of this film makes a strong impression, for it
is 16-year-old Raisa, not the fake marriage broker
or Raisa\'s partner – both of whom are men and are
aware of this contradictory system but do not dare to
take action – that throws herself into the system headon.
[KANG Ba-da]
PROGRAM NOTE
SYNOPSIS
Raisa lives with her Ammi and three younger sisters in the ghettos of Hyderabad\'s Old City. When Ammi promises her 13-year old daughter, Zainab, in marriage to a foreign businessman, Raisa decides that she must save her little sister. She hatches a dangerous and irreversible plan involving an archaic remedy that promises to restore a girl\'s virginity.
PROGRAM NOTE
Laisa lives in the slums of Hyderabad, India, with
her mother and three younger sisters. When Raisa
discovers that her mother is planning to marry Raisa\'s
13-year-old Zainab off to a foreign businessman as a
one-day bride because of money, Raisa is determined
to save her sister and devises a dangerous plan. The
ending of this film makes a strong impression, for it
is 16-year-old Raisa, not the fake marriage broker
or Raisa\'s partner – both of whom are men and are
aware of this contradictory system but do not dare to
take action – that throws herself into the system headon.
[KANG Ba-da]
Director
-
Payal SETHIPayal SETHI
"Payal Sethi studied film production & history at Vassar College and the Tisch School of the Arts in New York. Her debut film Hysterical Blindness (2002) won the best film award at The Smalls Film Festival and the Florence River to River Film Festival. She has been a curator for films & screenplays for the Independent Feature Project (IFP NY), and revamped the Sloan Foundation’s artist support program at the Tribeca Film Festival into the TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund, which she ran for two years. In 2008, she co-founded FilmKaravan, a digital distribution and production company. She was recently awarded with The Asia Society’s New Voices Fellowship for Screenwriters for her original screenplay, ‘Panther,’ a wildlife crime thriller set in Ranthambore & Delhi. She lives in Bangalore, India, and is currently working on her first feature film, Ooty Queen.
Credit
- ProducerPayal SETHI
- Cast Sayani GUPTA Mohammed Abdul RAZZAK Preeti GOLACHA
- Screenwriter Payal SETHI, Samir PATIL
- Cinematography James DEMETRI
- Art director Hiromi SANO
- Editor Vivan CHOPRA
- Music Tanuj TIKU
- Sound Udit DUSEJA
