About Four Nine and a Half Pictures

Four Nine and a Half Pictures, Inc. is the film company of Shashwati Talukdar and P. Kerim Friedman. Our current project is Hooch and Hamlet in Chharanagar, a documentary film about a theatre group in India. Contact us for more information.

Please Don’t Beat Me, Sir!

Once nomads, the Chhara now live in an urban ghetto on the edge of a large industrial city in western India. The British labeled them a “criminal tribe” and today they are still guilty until proven innocent. Nobody will hire them. To survive, some sell illegal liquor while others engage in petty thievery. But now a group of young people are using theater to fight back against a century of prejudice and oppression. [More info...]

Acting Like a Thief

Acting Like a Thief is about a Chhara tribal theatre group in Ahmedabad, India. Starting with the arrest of playwright DaKxin Bajrange (Chhara), the documentary reveals how the Budhan Theatre has transformed the lives of adults and children within the community.

Chhara tribals were notified as “natural criminals” by the British in 1871 and imprisoned in a labor camp in Ahmedabad. After Indian independence, they were de-notified, but the stigma of being a “born criminal” follows them to this day. The Budhan Theatre was inspired by the activism work of Mahasweta Devi. [More info...]

Mahasweta Devi: Witness, Advocate, Writer

Language is a weapon, its not for shaving your armpits.

So says eminent writer Mahasweta Devi in this documentary about the her life and work.

At the center of a half-century of tumultuous change, the lifetime of Mahasweta Devi has spanned the British period, Independence, and fifty years of postcolonial turmoil. Her writing has given Indian literature a new life and inspired two generations of writers, journalists and filmmakers. A celebrated writer and tireless activist; for the last two decades, she has led a battled on the behalf of the De-notified tribes of India-indigenous groups who were branded “natural criminals” by the British Colonial State, who face discrimination to this day, despite being “de-notified.”

Informal in style, this video explores how Mahasweta’s daily life and writing is a part of her life as a tireless worker for the rights of the aboriginal peoples of India. [More info...]

Short Films

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