Salma: Filming a Poet in Her Village by Kim Longinotto & Rajathi Salma

Author:Kim Longinotto & Rajathi Salma
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: BIO022000
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781939293145
Publisher: OR Books
Published: 2013-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Salma on the roof of her house in the village

As the two weeks of our first visit progressed, Kim got to know more and more about village life. Initially, I didn’t tell anyone the film was about me. A lot of People thought we were making a feature film rather than a documentary, and that I was just an actress in it. Jealousies and rivalries being what they were in the village, my feeling was that the community would be less hostile under this assumption than if they knew my life was the subject matter of the film, and so I just left people to their own misconceptions.

This turned out to be a mistake. After a great deal of initial speculation as to why foreigners were filming the village and its streets, many of the villagers came to the conclusion that I was trying to record the poverty of the village so that I could show it to people abroad and obtain funds, for my own purposes. A number of villagers came up to me and asked me directly whether this was true. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

On some of the days that we filmed, I had to pinch myself to be sure that I wasn’t dreaming. What was it that had brought these people from so far away? Was I important enough to be the subject of such a film? Was my life and that of the women in my village really so full of sorrow that it could move Kim to tears? I wasn’t certain about the answers to any of these questions.

To explain our way of living to those who have only known complete personal freedom seems like an almost impossible task. Yet, when I look back on my own past, I realize it’s an important thing to try and do. I remember one particular day in the village when a magazine reporter came to see me, accompanied by a photographer. After introducing him to Kim, I told him that we could begin the interview. As Kim prepared to start filming, the photographer said, “I’d like to take some photographs first. Would you please go and change from that churidar into a sari?” When I told him I’d rather not get changed, he was evidently surprised, indignant even. “What kind of dress is that?” he exclaimed, “I can’t photograph you wearing it. I really must insist you change into a sari.” I could see anger rising in Kim’s face as she listened to this. “What’s wrong with the dress?” she asked him indignantly. She was shocked that a photographer could tell a writer that he would photograph her only if she changed what she was wearing. She even stopped filming the interview.

As a party official, I’d been given a box of notepads with prominent photographs of the top leaders of the party printed in the margin. All the political representatives here have them. Whenever Kim wanted to write something down, she would tear off a page from the pad.

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