Sahan Shakti - Fortitude

Chandni Brown

2023 / 21 minutes
United Kingdom / United Kingdom
English, Gujarati with English Subtitles

Best Student Film — Honorable Mention

Marriages can be arranged, but so can divorces. Hina is a 60-year-old British Asian, a wife, mother, and recent divorcee, whose identity and heritage span multiple borders: India, Uganda, Kenya, and the UK. Thirty-eight years after her arranged marriage, she reflects on how her life as a ‘twice-migrant’ has shaped her and considers what life post-divorce might bring. Exploring themes of migration, gender, and arranged marriage, Sahan Shakti - Fortitude is an ethnographic documentary that offers a quiet contemplation on the experiences of a South Asian family living in the UK. Using co-production techniques and poetic expression, the film delves into the life of the filmmaker as she collaborates closely with her mother, aunt, and grandmother to navigate intergenerational relationships and the complex diasporic identities of transnational migrants. As the expectations and roles placed upon women come to the fore, so do the ways in which these can be negotiated, expressed, and reconciled with individual agency. Drawing on both experiential and empirical insights, the film uses the medium of documentary filmmaking to weave a narrative that bridges past and present, the subconscious and the material. By employing archival footage, animation, and poetry, it communicates the internal world and life of Hina.