The KALASAM

is the arrangement of a brass or silver pot filled with water, holding a coconut amongst mango tree leaves at its mouth. It's regarded as auspicious and used to initiate Poojas and invoke the Goddess Shakthi in the local culture.

When the women started saving for contingencies again, as their predecessor had done for generations, they wanted to do so in an auspicious manner in the name of the God so that it will continue and flourish. They decided to give the name KALASAM for their saving group, collect saving and work with this name in Madurai area.

The documentary starts in Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India, at Menaxi Temple the Hindu devotion, where Brahmin steps on Shiva mantras.
At the same time, at a brick factory and at the stone cave in Madurai slum, young women are carrying awful weighs: on Parvati sorrowful voice. These are the people migrated from the village, in search of new source of income.

But there is an alternative to migration. In a rural area a woman and her daughter start the new day bathing on a little lake. Here is a portrait of the beauty of the rural life still based on human sized activity and a journey in the women's activities.
As an alternative from moneylender politics, women organized themselves gathering money funds to be borrowed on turn, to face hard times or to start small enterprises at the village, according with the local resources, still on wage basis: this is the core of MICROCREDIT.

In the countryside north Madurai the girls can sew their saree blouses by sewing machine. A Mother and daughter prepare mango pickles. Not far a sugar cane field, the juice is processed and boiled with a fire burning the waste. In a nearby village the rice is cultivated then separated from the fibre that animals can eat, and pre cooked to be stored for one season. A village is totally devoted to palm leaves weaving: the large family gathers every morning around cut trees and leaves.

The rhythm of a little hammer resounds in the tamarind scent: the fruits are prepared and weighted. While the rope is created from the fibre of the coconut, in another village medicinal plants are picked up: the sacred neem glues the women and their families. Deep south, in Srilanka direction, the sea near the shore is a field: seaweed are picked up and cultivated day by day to grow under the sun.    The day has gone: in the temple the Brahmins are still celebrating Gods.

November  18th - 26th, 2006. Rome     .

December 8th - 14th, 2006.  Florence    

December  15th - 22th. 2006.  Chennai Film Festival  

February 23th - March 2nd. 2007.  Vancouver

Julay  13th, 2007.  Bollywood and beyond  Film Festival. Stuttgart