Shakti Pirakudhu

Shakti Pirakudhu is a feature film my Director Usha Rajeswari, that is the story of a woman in Madurai who seeks success by setting up her own enterprise. The film is based on conversations with self help groups around Madurai, and was originally made as a training manual for an MFI. Robert Moore shares his thoughts on the film, and how it is has been received.

Recently a screening of the film Shakti Pirakudhu was held in Bangalore followed by a chat with the Director Usha Rajeswari.

The creation of the film stemmed from Usha’s experience as a documentary film maker and a request from Madura Microfinance to create a training film for their self help groups.  Eventually it was decided that the film would become a feature film instead of just for training.

The impact of this film as a training video seems to meet its mark as the audience of village women recalled a lot of the film from seeing one of the first cuts.  Additionally it sounds like the plan is to show the village women only one clip at a time so it will be easier for them to process and utilize the learning in each clip.

The impact of this film outside of a training video will probably be determined by its distribution.  There were a lot of BOP professionals at the screening so if more screenings are made available in certain cities and marketed to that demographic it is sure to gain an audience.  As a film outside of a villager or BOP professional training video it could strike a chord with a normal audience because even the sound engineer at a screening was driven to tears and was inspired to treat his wife better after seeing the film.

One of the interesting aspects of the film was the types of problems that it addresses and the way they are overcome by the protagonist.  As Madura Microfinance describes frequent reasons for their clients’ failure: “It was not that these women lacked intelligence, but rather their aspirations and success were circumscribed by a lack of education and exposure to the world beyond their villages. They were also constrained by a fatalistic mindset.”

The film didn’t just describe the problem but also prescribed a solution, showing how the protagonist started taking things into her own hands after being scolded by the local school teacher of how she can’t blame her failures on the outside world but she has to take responsibility herself.  It was also humorous the way the film depicts the villagers’ annoyance with a different character who flaunts the fact that she has an MBA and that she thinks she knows everything about business.

Since this film is intended to train villagers in the Madura Microfinance company one can trust that the scenarios are accurate and relevant to the BOP.  Because of this the film can be considered not only a great education for the villagers it was meant to train but also an education for the BOP professionals who want to get a better grasp of the real market issues and how they are being overcome today.