Independent filmmaker Kiranmayi Indrangati’s recent documentary, A Season of Love, was screened at the Ethnografilm festival at Paris. The first screening of the documentary was held in India, in Hyderabad, recently and Kiranmayi says that the response was “amazing”.
About 10 years ago, Kiranmayi had visited Vedurupattu, a village along the Pulicat Lake. And she was so touched by the villagers caring for migratory birds that she wanted to document it. “I always wanted to come back to this lake and make a film, because I never really forgot about it,” says Kiranmayi.
A Season of Love portrays the unique bond the villagers share with migratory birds, which visit the villages on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. “I travelled to Pulicat Lake, Sulurpet and other places near Guntur, Eluru, Kakinada and Vizag and tried to understand what changes had come about in the birds visiting small villages and in the way people responded to them. People told me that the birds visited them year after year because they don’t harm them and a few others also said that they had a particular superstition related to the arrival of birds,” she says.
“The birds come from Central Asia and have a huge migratory route. My film is not per se about migration. It is about how people treat birds on this coastal belt, their perceptions, what the arrival of the birds symbolise for them etc.,” adds Kiranmayi. She has made many documentary films over the years, which also include some commissioned ones, two of which have been screened at the Mumbai International Film Festival.
