Behind the Breadline (L.V.) (1974)
Director: S. Sukhdev; Writer: Tanvier Farouqe, Tapan Bose; Producer: S. Sukhdev; Cinematographer: Govind Maharesh
Duration: 00:10:06; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 145.297; Saturation: 0.066; Lightness: 0.400; Volume: 0.212; Cuts per Minute: 19.294; Words per Minute: 51.352
Summary: Propaganda film with emphatic graphics (e.g. a large question mark cut out of newspaper) for Indira Gandhi's 'Garibi Hatao' (Away with Poverty) agricultural policies. Opening with shots of demonstrators led by the Mumbai Mazdoor Sabha being confronted by police, the film cuts to paddy-fields and suggests that the main political and economic problem facing the country is the presence of Sukhdev's favourite enemy: black marketeers and hoarders. Shots of peasants at work are juxtaposed with food-laden plates at tourist resorts, and the mechanical sieving of wheat in Punjab is accompanied by bhangra folk-dance music. The film ends with a governmental raid on black marketeers staged for the film.
FD synopsis:
India has always faced the problem of supplying adequate food grains to people at economic prices. This problem has been aggravated by recurring famines. During the last twenty eight years of independence, the complexion of the food problem has changed, but the basic issues of shortages remains. Though India's production of food-grains remarkably went up after the successful Green Revolution, people still have to face food shortages mainly because of black-marketing and hoarding by the vested interests. Behind the Breadline is a constant fight against the hoarder, against the black-marketer, against the trader profiteering in human misery.
Belan Morcha
Mrinal Gore
PPF_Housing
A rally by the Mahagai Pratikar Samyukta Mahila Samiti (Anti-Price Rise Joint Women's Front) protesting against the rising prices of the common goods led by Mrinal Gore.
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A rally marching and barricades put by the police to halt them.
Drumbeats. A rally (Rashtriya Seva Dal flags, or Mumbai Mazdoor Sabha). Close up a man looking at us. A zebra crossing. Constabulary and police officers putting up barricades. Patter repeats. Police in a cordon, Protestors staging a sit-in. Close up of a woman looking at us. Zebra crossing, police march across barricades on one side. Drumbeats. Classic Sukdhev style montage, evoking the montage of the morchas he filmed in Bombay for India 67 and Miles to go.
h2
PPF_Housing
T: Behind The Breadline, 1974, S. Sukhdev
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