Rakesh Sharma talks about his film Final Solution, which won the Index on Censorship Film Award in March 2005.

BBC Four: You've said that the Gujarat riots were a turning point for India. Why is that?
Rakesh Sharma: It was a turning point because for the first time the state was complicit. We now have it on record that there were government ministers trying to disrupt and control police operations when the violence was at its peak. Also, bias against a certain kind of minority continued even after the riots - there was an unsavoury kind of haste to either deny relief or to shut down camps before people could get back to their lives. And there was a complete attempt to pervert justice for the victims - so much so that many people had to rely on intervention from the Supreme Court of India. The Court created judicial history by shifting riot cases outside Gujarat on the grounds that it is not feasible for the victims to get justice within the region's own legal system.

BBC Four: What was your approach to making the film after those events?
RS: Firstly I wanted it to be more than a record of grief and tragedy but also to try to look at the political conditions behind it and probe exactly why and how this violence was unleashed. That governed my decision to do the bulk of the shooting just before and during the election process. You find a complete absence of commentators in the film. Secondly I decided to stay away from what I call the 'bookshelf interview' - having 'The Expert', 'The Sociologist', 'The Activist' who attempt to explain events to the audience. I wanted primary material, people's own voices, whether it was from within the minority community, the Hindu families who had lost lives, or the rightwing leadership.

BBC Four: Were you at all concerned that your own Hindu background would be problematic when interviewing Muslims?
RS: Well, the context was that unlike previous riots that India has seen, this was the first time that images actually came out on television. Had we been living in the pre-satellite era, people wouldn't have seen these brutal images in their living rooms. So because of the kind of outrage this coverage brought, there was pressure on both the government to try and contain the riots. The impact of this was that the Muslim community saw mainstream media as people who had helped them out, and I was perceived to be an extension of that media, so there was a great receptivity. In fact, people were more open to somebody like me than to the local Gujarati media as it was seen as absolutely partisan and pro-rightwing. Perhaps because I have looked at riots professionally over the past 15 years, there is that bit of sensitivity in the way I chose my questions, in the way I chose to shoot. I work without any lights or tripods just using a camcorder, which made it a more one-on-one kind of conversation.

BBC Four: The film was banned in India. Could you talk about some of the issues that face independent filmmakers at the moment?
RS: The law is that you must have a censors' certificate before you screen your film in public - otherwise it's an offence punishable by jail terms and fines. As soon as the certificate is denied, the film is buried. So then you have to go to court, but the legal system takes time. When you do eventually win your case, the film is not as current and then it finds a limited release within the 'people like us' kind of crowd; you're preaching to the converted through the NGOs and universities. That's the pattern I wanted to break with this film. So, the moment Final Solution was banned, we did all kinds of campaigns around it including 'pirate and circulate' efforts whereby I made copies of the film available free of cost, provided people promised to make at least five more pirate copies and hand those out as well. I only circulated 10,000 copies to begin with but something like 80,000 copies got out over the first couple of months of the ban. Another campaign held on 2 October (Mahatma Ghandi's birthday) saw several Gujarati writers and organisations get together and decide that if public screenings were banned, we'd hold private ones instead. People invited their friends, family and neighbours to their homes and we had over 220 screenings on that day alone. With each such campaign there was the attendant media coverage highlighting not just on the film but the entire issue of state censorship itself.

BBC Four: How much of an impact has this new way of distributing sensitive films had on the government?
RS: It's had a big impact. For example, the Bombay International Film Festival is traditionally where films critical of the state sweep the awards. But last year they decided to keep out all inconvenient films - and mine was top of the list. So we organised another film festival at the same time as the official one in the venue opposite. We only showed films that had been rejected and got an unprecedented response and now we are a very healthy coalition of more than 200 filmmakers who take the festival to various cities. The debate reached a head because the rightwing members of the censor board stormed my screening, which again created a nationwide focus on this entire debate. The result is in coming months there will be an overall review of the Cinematograph Act.

BBC Four: So is the environment for filmmakers in India healthy at the moment or are there still many obstacles to overcome?
RS: Away from things like censorship, the environment has been healthy for some time now. Digital video technology has boosted the filmmaking movement. I for instance edit entirely on my home computer. Also in terms of the shooting process itself, now you've got affordable cameras that give you completely acceptable results. So DV has ensured that the number of filmmakers has gone up in the last four or five years with anywhere between 250-350 documentary films being made every year in India.

 FINAL SOLUTION HOMEPAGE