Malati Rao India 2006 Grantee US-Canada Program MFA degree in Film and Media Arts from Temple University in Philadelphia MA in Mass Communication from Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi
If you wanted to meet the Producer and Director of Barracuda Films in Mumbai, India, you would seek out Malati Rao, 2006 MMEG grantee. The name of her company is fierce, corresponding to the ferocious and critical, yet deeply empathetic commentary Malati captures filming the essence of her subjects. “Law, women and education are three themes that I seem to keep coming back to in all of my work,” she observes.
Two of Malati’s films especially reflect her singular talent: Born Behind Bars (2016), and Made in India (2013). In Born Behind Bars, Malati had to overcome many disappointments and barriers to film the world of women and small children in prison. (After age six, the children must live in hostels or in care of someone else, a wrenching parting for both mother and child.) Her passion and efforts captured both the positive and negative features of children incarcerated with their mothers. Malati was surprised to witness the close connection and community the children experienced with their mothers, always close by, even if they seldom saw the sun. Yet the teachers maintained that the children lived in a negative atmosphere where they learned “bad words and actions.” Malati observed that the schoolroom, devoid of equipment and supplies, could not provide the instruction the children deserved. Some of the children’s stories were heart-wrenching for Malati, but she also observed that despite their trauma, the children were hardy, connecting to the world, and surviving. A critic from Scroll.in observed that in Born Behind Bars, “Rao creates rare moments of intimacy in a world where the women and their children are always being watched.”
Made in India (2013), captures the energy, intelligence, skill, and satisfaction that Indian artisans bring to their work. One middle-aged potter gleefully proclaimed how joyful it was to dream about his glazes! Malati weaves many important themes in her production: how arts and crafts illuminate Indian identity, how craftwork brings income jobs, and pride to communities, especially for women; and how innovations build on traditions. The website delhievents.com praises this work for exploring “the experiences of traditional craftspersons from across the country and their connection to the land which gives them their identity.”
Her most recent production, The Geshema Is Born, released in 2019, reveals the achievement of Tibetan Nuns gaining the right to the highest level of monastic education, the Geshe Ma, through the significant support by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Malati observed, “His holiness had the fortitude to see how important it was to bring gender parity [to women in the monastic community].”
Despite 25 years of petitioning, the nuns struggled to achieve the degree of Geshe Ma, the equivalent of a PhD in monastic studies. Malati observed that “the nuns of three generations have stood on each other’s shoulders to sustain the ideals of transformation and an end to suffering.”
Male critics were vocal in excluding women from this monastic achievement, some even saying that Buddhism would not survive beyond 500 years once they included women; that Buddha did not desire it; and that nuns did not have as much discipline or ability to keep vows as monks. The nuns attained their wish in 2016—with all the top religious leadership present.
For the nuns, Geshema is more than attaining a civil or human right or completing a major achievement. For them, this status becomes a means to achieve spiritual salvation, nirvana. Malati comments, “The nuns are here to seek freedom from suffering. The Geshema degree is a triumph of them overcoming their fears and disappointments and paving the way to their future.”
There are many ways to “pave the way” for a future, and no doubt in time MMEG will add enthusiastic descriptions of many more productions from Malati to this website.
