Yasmine Kabir lived in the USA for 13 years. But always wanted to come back home some day. She was recently in Calcutta on invitation by the Roop Kala Kendra, which screened the two hard-hitting documentary films she has made over the past two years. She learnt filmmaking while in the US as she also raised her two children and founded an organization for South Asian battered women called Narika in 1991. Within five years, the organization really grew and cut across barriers of age, education, caste and community who would approach Narika for counseling and succor. Yasmine returned to Dacca in 1995 and her immediate concern was with the marginal people in her country who were subject to official, governmental and even NGO apathy to their living conditions. In a brief interview, she speaks about her two films, and what drew her to this alternative world of cinema that is dogged by the same official apathy as are the subjects of her two films. Excerpts from the interview

What inspires you when you choose the subject of a film?

I am inspired by what affects me.

What sort of reaction do you ideally want from the audience after watching your films?

Ideally, I would want audiences to empathize with and reflect on what they’ve seen on the screen and as a result, if needed, feel the urge to act on the situation. I will have succeeded in doing this only if I were able to transmit, through my films, some of the passion I have felt while working on them.

Apart from getting rousing reviews and awards, has My Migrant Soul caused any changes in the treatment of migrant workers?

It would be too ambitious to assume that it has been able to change anything at all in a tangible manner, because, all too frequently, in the newspapers, you read about the mistreatment of migrant workers somewhere or the other, whether it be at the hands of the local agencies in Bangladesh or at those of the hosts in the host countries.

The film has had open air screenings in different localities like Rayerbazar and Mohammadpur in Dhaka, by an organization called Social Initiatives. After the screenings, people would come up to us with suggestions and recount their own stories as well as those of their relatives, some of whom they hadn’t heard from since they left. At one screening in Mohammadpur, two cable operators from the audience, came up to the organizers to suggest the film be shown on television to wider audiences since, they felt, that way more would become aware of the pitfalls of migration. When the organizers responded that it was very difficult to get it shown on any of the big channels like ETV (ETV did finally show it on labor day in May,2002) or BTV, the government owned channel, the operators requested two copies, and they have shown it since on their cable channels, in-between Hindi film screenings.

The film has also been shown at an International Conference on Migration in Dhaka and was watched by officials from the labor ministry and, I am sure, by other well-known people in the field.

Related to this issue, is an earlier advocacy film that I made during the amnesty period, in Malaysia, for illegal migrant workers to legalize their passports. We were at the Bangladeshi High Commission in Kuala Lumpur to get information on Shahjahan Babu (the protagonist of ‘My Migrant Soul’), when we saw hundreds of migrant workers milling about the High Commission waiting to gain entry to see their officials.

On seeing my camera, they assumed I was a journalist and started complaining about the mistreatment the embassy staff doled out to them and the frustrations they suffered, some of them having to drive hundreds of miles each time to get their passports legalized, only to be turned away.

On my return, I quickly pieced together a twelve minute documentary from these interviews and screened it for the then State minister for foreign affairs as well as other officials at the foreign ministry. The film was also screened, a few days later, at a press conference by Naripokkho and Ain-O-Shalish Kendro. The next day, the newspapers carried very strong editorials, as a result of which, the High Commissioner and some corrupt officials were transferred from Malaysia.

‘My Migrant Soul’ was shown at the Fair Trade conference held in Hong Kong, by Oxfam this year as well as at the Conference on Racism held in Durban, South Africa. Irene Fernandez of Tenaganita, in Malaysia, has used it extensively in her work on migrant workers. Recently, Amnesty International wrote, asking for permission to distribute fifty copies of my earlier documentary, Duhshomoy (A Mother’s Lament),to public schools in the U.S. for discussions on women's rights and police brutality. Though, unfortunately, I may add, my films have not had the kind of exposure I would have wished to have in Bangladesh. I have had far more requests for my films from groups abroad, including NGO’s working in India, than I have had from those working in Bangladesh. I do not know why this is so. Perhaps, they are not fully aware of the impact and usefulness of audiovisual media. I hope that all of this will change as we realize how important a role it can play. I would like the film to be able to reach as wide an audience as possible, if only to raise awareness about the issue. Because, ultimately, change cannot come through a single film or a single poem, but through the collective efforts of all.

Tell us something about your involvement with Narika?

Narika grew out of a group of, initially, four of us friends. Quirone Adhikary, came up with the idea of a hotline for South Asian Women subjected to domestic violence. It sounded rather daunting and we were hesitant that we would be able to handle such an undertaking.

The need for an organization for South Asian women, in the San Francisco area, was indeed real. Women who had left behind families to come to an alienating and unfamiliar environment and who, a lot of times, were mistreated and abused by their partners, had nowhere to turn to and did not feel comfortable about approaching mainstream organizations. We contacted other South Asian women who, in spite of their initial skepticism, came forward to make Narika happen.It has been ten years since and the organization has grown in many different ways. Many of us, initial members, have moved on- I left to return to Bangladesh, but the organization continues to sustain itself. Working with women in Narika helped me in my latter work because, it taught me how to listen.

What made you jump to making films?

Rather, it was more of a slow process. As far back as I can remember I’ve always wanted to make films. Having lived in the Bay Area helped, because San Francisco has such a large community of filmmakers and the resources are incredible. Seeing “Perfumed Nightmare’, by Kidlat Tahimik a Filipino filmmaker, made the possibility seem real. The film was made in circumstances, similar to ours in Bangladesh. He recycled some of Werner Herzog’s old film stock to make the film. It was not a technically perfect film, like in Hollywood, but the content was what mattered. That’s also when I started thinking about the kind of films I would like to make. Both my documentaries were made on a Hi-8 semi-professional camera; I did not have a crew and did my own camerawork in ‘My Migrant Soul’. I tried being as self-reliant as possible.

As someone who was a Nonresident Bangladeshi before, how do you see NRBs contribute to social causes in Bangladesh?

Bangladeshis living abroad can contribute in many ways-in terms of skills learnt abroad that can be put to use in Bangladesh; there can be exchanges of ideas, resources; organizations like Drishtipat can be formed to create pressure groups. The linkages are important. It is being seen that changes for the better are happening only where the people are beginning to assert themselves, as we can no longer depend on our governments to, voluntarily, do it for us. Ultimately, where we live is not as important as what we are working towards.

What are you working on right now and what are your future plans?

I am working on three other documentaries, including one about a woman who lost her entire family in’71, during the war of liberation.

I am also doing a music video on Pothik Nabi, a street poet/songwriter.

In future, one of the things I would like to do is to work in theatre, on a Chittagonian folk ballad.