Expressway brings real to reel

PUNE: The 94-km Pune-Mumbai expressway may have caught the fancy of many, particularly motorists who love to vroom.
However, a documentary by the students of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) has delved into the other side of the nation''s first six-lane freeway.
The 10-minute film, Expressway, focuses on fatal accidents, ecological impact and misery of the villagers who lost land in the project.
High-speed trauma, victims suffering spinal or chest injuries that are not seen in normal accident cases and the government''s unfulfilled promises of jobs and compensation to farmers who parted with their land are the other harsh realities captured in the documentary.
It also seeks to chronicle the impact of the expressway on the ecologically fragile area of the western ghats.
However, the attempt suffers markedly as no efforts were made to speak to Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) authorities who floated the project.
Second-year FTII student Sanju Surendran, who directed the film, explains that the MSRDC''s version was not taken because they were not permitted to travel to Mumbai for filming.
The project was part of a students'' exercise, second-year FTII student Sanju Surendran, who directed the documentary, told Times News Network.
Sanju said the subject interested him as an expressway has been proposed by the government in his home state of Kerala. He is currently doing his three-year diploma in direction at the institute.
"There has been some resistance to the Kerala proposal by various groups, and my documentary is just an attempt to help people foresee what would be the situation like if the project comes through," he said.
The documentary is also aimed at creating awareness among people who fancy the expressway but are ignorant of the pitfalls, he added.
"We tried to project how the expressway has increased the number of fatal accidents, particularly due to high-speed driving," Sanju said.
"Incidences of spinal/chest injuries and multiple fractures are very high on the expressway, not commonly seen with other highway accidents... at least one a day," said orthopaedic surgeon Narendra Vaidya, of the Lokmanya hospital, who has been interviewed for the documentary.
Sanju said environmentalist Erach Bharucha and Sujit Patwardhan, of the Parisar environmental group, among others, provided valuable inputs for the film.
Sanju, who was assisted by his classmates Saikat Mallick and Pradeep Menon in the camerawork and sound recording, said he decided to work on Expressway after reading numerous reports in newspapers.