CJFF Presents : To Kill a Tiger
Physical Screening VENUE : Central public libraryWhen : November 18, 6:30 PM Nisha Pahuja’s Notice Pictures/NFB co-production To Kill a Tiger, in which a farmer in Jharkhand, India, takes on the fight of his life when he demands justice for his daughter, the victim of a brutal gang rape.
In a small village in Jharkhand, India, Ranjit wakes up to find that his daughter has not returned home from a family wedding. Calls are made, a search ensues, and a few hours later, she’s found stumbling home. After having been dragged into the woods, she was raped by three men, all of whom are known to the family. Ranjit and his wife go to the police, and the men are arrested.
But the family’s relief is short-lived when the villagers and their leaders launch a sustained campaign to force Ranjit to drop the charges. They demand the girl marry one of her rapists—a tried and true community solution. This, they feel, is the only way to restore her honour and that of the community. Ranjit defies their edict and embarks on a perilous journey, navigating both the labyrinth of India’s courts and the rising dangers in his village.
A cinematic, story-driven documentary, To Kill a Tiger follows Ranjit’s uphill battle to find justice for his child. In India, where a rape is reported every 20 minutes and conviction rates are less than 30 percent, Ranjit’s decision to support his daughter is virtually unheard of, and his journey unprecedented.
Nisha Pahuja (born 1978) is an independent Canadian filmmaker, born in New Delhi and raised in Toronto, Ontario. This writer/artist/director was introduced to film through studying English literature, working in social services and through working as a documentary researcher. She is currently a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow. Nisha’s first full-length film debut was in 2003 in Bollywood Bound, and more recently she produced a film The World Before Her (2012) which explored the diverse lifestyles of women competing to become Miss India and juxtaposing it with Hindu Nationalists fighting for their beliefs.