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The Fisherman and the Banker
A Fight against Industrial Encroachment
Speakers
85 min | Gujarati, Kutchi, Hindi and English with English subtitles
A modern-day David and Goliath tale, this documentary chronicles the Wagher fishermen of Gujarat as they fight against industrial encroachment. They take on the World Bank’s private lending arm, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), for funding a coal-fired power plant that threatens their way of life. A groundbreaking lawsuit, filed with the support of US lawyers, reaches the US Supreme Court in 2018. With a poetic and observational lens, the film explores their legal battle and profound bond with the environment, posing a powerful question: can the resilience of a community rewrite the rules of global power?
In collaboration with:
Venue: Seminar Halls
Speakers
Sheena Sumaria
Sheena is a British-Gujarati filmmaker with a background in economics and development studies from Cambridge University and SOAS. Rooted in her British-Asian heritage, her work connects local struggles to global power structures, blending poetic and observational styles to explore resistance, identity, and community. Her debut feature, co-directed with her sister Sonum, Even the Crows: A Divided Gujarat, examined the rise of Hindu nationalism in India from a transnational perspective. The Fisherman and the Banker, her second feature, continues this exploration of Gujarat’s marginalised communities while critically examining international financial institutions. Her other films include Still Standing, on life in Medellín’s slums; Chile: Building Dreams, on the Chilean student uprising; and shorts on issues ranging from homelessness to Brexit.
Sushma Veerappa
Sushma Veerappa has worked in both fiction and non-fiction films in various roles – as Sub-Editor of a film quarterly, film educator for school children, assistant director, script writer, editor, producer, director, and as founder-trustee of a film collective screening documentaries in Bangalore city since 2005.
