In the early hours of December 3, 1984, while the city of Bhopal, India was still waking up to face another winter morning, a tank holding toxic Methyl Isocyanate gas (MIC) got overheated and released 40 tonnes of gas at the Union Carbide subsidiary pesticide plant. What came to be known as the worst industrial disaster in the history immediately killed 3,000 people and has caused about 22,000 deaths to date.
This film examines the Bhopal disaster through the context of increasing globalization and questions the tremendous influence that corporate giants wield throughout the 'developing' world. The documentary was released on the sixteenth anniversary of the Bhopal disaster. The film has won awards and is used as a teaching resource on globalization and environmental justice by Universities in the United States and Australia.
Filmmaker Pavithra Narayanan is Assistant Professor of Postcolonial Literature, Film Theory and Production and Women's Studies, at Washington State University Vancouver, Washington. Economic policies, gender, and globalization, with a focus on India, are the central issues in her publications. She has a strong commitment to community-engaged research and has for the last several years focused considerable energy in producing documentaries that engage critical issues in contemporary Indian culture.
"I see film as one of the most powerful media for talking about social issues," reflects Professor Narayanan. "It's one thing to give a talk, and it's another to do a film that really show people what's happening."
Professor Narayanan is currently working on a documentary that is exploring the growing national movement to resist military rule in northeast India. The focus of the film is on arms deals.
