Pink Saris and Big Sticks

Clad in pink saris and wielding big sticks, a small group of women in rural North India has swelled into a national movement for women’s rights and social reform. Gulabi Gang (The Pink Gang) is a documentary about this homegrown vigilante women’s movement, and is screening in Austin on Wednesday.

Now a national movement of more than 400,000, the Gulabi Gang has become a force in changing abusive family relationships and in fighting discrimination and bureaucratic corruption. This prize-winning documentary captures the drama and tension of their confrontations, challenges, and victories.

Sampat Pal, the leader of the movement, draws the film’s focus as she organizes women to take on the male-dominated hierarchy, which is the unquestioned natural order of things. The women travel from village to village to confront husbands, police, and unsympathetic administrators in their fight against gender and caste oppression.

The film has won several international film awards including Best Film at festivals in Dubai, Norway, and India, as well as Amnesty International Awards for Human Rights. Gulabi Gang is produced by Torstein Grude and Signe Sorenson, who were nominated for an Oscar for producing The Act of Killing. At the same time, this women’s movement has inspired other film productions, including a Bollywood blockbuster and a UK-based documentary titled Pink Saris.

Gulabi Gang is directed by Nishtha Jain, who will be in attendance at the Austin screening to answer questions about the challenges of production under these circumstances and other issues related to the film. The film is presented by Indie Meme, an Austin-based film distribution company that promotes indie films in the U.S. and South Asia, in association with the Austin Film Society. This partnership is also responsible for the retrospective of Satyajit Ray films currently playing through October and early November.

“We are very excited about being able to bring Gulabi Gang to Austin,” said Alka Bhanot, founder of Indie Meme.“Our mission is to bring international independent films to local theatres in Texas. We believe that these films help build a global community at the local level.”

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Gulabi Gang screens at the Marchesa Hall & Theatre, Wed. October 15, 7.30pm. Advance tickets can be purchased at www.austinfilm.org.