FESTIVALS: *CPH:DOX (Denmark) * Göteborg International Film Festival (Sweden) * IDFA (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) * Tribeca Film Festival (New York, USA) * Melbourne International Film Festival (Australia) * Docville / Fonk (Belgium) * Movies that Matter Foundation (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) * Yale Environmental Film Festival (New Haven, USA) * DOCSMX (México DF, Mexico) * Zurich Film Festival (Switzerland) * Festival on Wheels (Kavaklidere Ankara, Turkey) * Dubai International Film Festival (UAE) * Take One Action Film Festival (Edinburgh, UK) * Internazionale a Ferrara (Ferrara, Italy) * DOXA Documentary Film Festival (Vancouver, BC, Canada) * Watch Docs Festival (Warsaw, Poland) * Zinebi - Bilbao International Festival of Documentary And Short Films (Spain) * Inconvenient Films Documentary Festival (Vilnius, Lithuania) * Rio International Film Festival (Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil) * Cinéma Vérité - Iran International Documentary Film Festival (Tehran, Iran) * Aarhus Filmfestival (Denmark) * This Human World (Vienna, Austria) * Salem Film Fest (USA) * One World Romania (Bucharest, Romania) * Doc Cévennes - Festival international du documentaire en Cévennes (Lasalle, France) * Open City Docs (London, UK) * Raindance Film Festival (London, UK) * Brave Festival Film (Wroclaw, Poland) * Nuremberg International Human Rights Film Festival (Germany) * Asiatica Filmmediale (Rome, Italy) * Tutti nello stesso piatto (Trento, Italy) * San Francisco Green Film Festival (USA) * Motovun Film Festival (Zagreb, Croatia) * Stuttgart Indian Film Festival (Germany) * Papua New Guinea Human Rights Film Festival (, Papua New Guinea) * International Festival of Film and Urbanism “86” (Slavutych, Ukraine) * Festival international Signes de Nuit (Paris, France) * CInéMADE (Marseille, France) * Viennale (Austria) * Chalo India - Indian Film Festival (Münster, Germany) * FOKAL - Fondation Connaissance et libertés (Haïti) * Cité de l’architecture et du Patrimoine (France)
AWARDS: * Best Film Award in the India Gold Section of the 15th Mumbai Film Festival
POWERLESS
Category |
Economy, Environment, Human Interest, Social Issues
Year |
2013
Country |
India
Running time |
80’ - 52'
Format |
HD
Production |
Globalistan Films
Director |
Deepti Kakkar, Fahad Mustafa
A 28-year-old electrician living in Kanpur is renowned for his prowess in stealing electricity. He is a robin-hood figure, stealing electricity and charging the rich to provide free connections in impoverished neighborhoods. In the face of day-long power-cuts, he runs illegal connections from one neighborhood to another so that homes, factories and businesses could function normally. On the other hand, the city administration is renewing efforts to clamp down on power-theft, which costs them millions of rupees in losses each year. Yearly drives to remove illegal connections are met with street protests and anger.
In the meantime, lack of electricity drives people to use generators run on fossil fuels. This is choking the town, making Kanpur one of the most polluted cities in India. A picture emerges of a modern dystopia encompassing urban decay and desperation in the lack of electricity.
Underlying the localized crisis in Kanpur, India’s leather capital, which provides raw material to major western brands, is the glaring energy poverty in the country, where a third of the population is bereft of this basic need, and the rest grapple with power-cuts that dictate their own terms. Powerless puts a lens to an unexplored narrative of one of the world’s fastest developing economies.
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