Short film on sexual harassment to be screened at Cannes

GAYA: 'The Mechanic', a short film on sexual harassment of teenage girls, will be screened at the Cannes film festival. The nearly two week long festival begins on May 15, 2013. A directorial venture of Durba Sahay, the Gaya-based fiction writer and cultural activist, the film has been selected in the short film category.
A preview of the film was organized at Renaissance auditorium on Sunday evening.A select group of people watched the half-an-hour preview. Giving a somewhat new perspective to the ongoing trauma of young victims of different forms of sexual harassment, the film explains one aspect of early marriage. The film protagonist, a senior secondary school student, is stalked by a mechanic of her father's age whenever she is on way to her school.
The protagonist, like any other normal girl of her age, suffers in silence. The harassment impacts the growing personality of the girl child, and in a way also fashions her thought process. Unable to develop a defence mechanism against the old and ugly stalker, the girl ultimately opts for the very old institution of marriage. Getting married may rid her of the trauma, she thought, and ultimately it worked as well. She grabs a suitable marriage proposal which was originally made to her elder sister.
The institution of marriage, besides offering the girl the much needed security, also gave her the confidence to confront the uncomfortable situations and give up the escapist mindset that forced her into early marriage. The newfound confidence is visible during the chance encounter of the girl with the stalker and some kind of a role reversal takes place with the stalker fumbling and the girl wearing a triumphant smile.
Shot with amateur artists, The Mechanic has Pankhuri Saxena and Virendra in the lead roles. Post preview, the viewers informally discussed the film and the story's treatment by the director. Some of them said the film was escapist as marriage was not the right option to end sexual harassment and advances outside home.
Justifying Durba's treatment of the story, a theatre buff and medical practitioner Dr Manju Sinha said the film can be questioned on the basis of principles but when it comes to the realities of life, a director is not always supposed to depict life as it should be. It is no less important to portray life as it is. Depicting reality is a more effective instrument of social change, she said.