Drowned Out
(75 minutes) India/USA
Director/Producer: Franny Armstrong

Description:

An Indian family decides to stay at home and drown rather than make way for the Narmada dam. They have three choices. Move to the slums in the city, accept a place at a resettlement site, or stay at home and drown. The people of Jalsindhi India must make a decision fast. In the next few weeks their village will disappear underwater as the giant dam fills. Drowned Out follows the Jalsindhi villagers through hunger strikes, rallies, police brutality, and a six-year Supreme Court case. Best-selling author Arundhati Roy joins the fight against the dam and asks the difficult questions. Will the water go to poor farmers or to rich industrialists? What happened to the 16 million people displaced by fifty years of dam building? Drowned Out follows the Jalsindhi villagers through hunger strikes, rallies, police brutality, and a six-year Supreme Court case.

Biography:

Franny Armstrong always wanted to be a rock drummer. But she hung up her drumsticks in 1995, age 23, to start working on her first documentary. McLibel was released in 1997 and became notorious after being pulled by lawyers, first at the BBC and then Channel 4. It went on to be broadcast in seven countries and released theatrically in Australia. She set up Spanner Films in 1997 and has made three short documentaries on climate change and police racism. Her new epic Drowned Out started shooting in 1999 and was finished in August 2002.

Contact Information:

John Hoskyns-Abrahall, President
Bullfrog Films
P.O. Box 149
Oley, PA 19547
Phone: 800-543-FROG
Email: info@bullfrogfilms.com
URL: http://www.bullfrogfilms.com