Arts & Culture
By Editor
During early January this year, I watched the very harrowing documentary, India’s Daughter, for the second time. It was screened by Lockdown University, an online educational initiative started by former South African Wendy Fisher, daughter of Natie Kirsch, during Covid. The filmmaker, Leslee Udwin, gave viewers access to the movie, and presented two webinars afterwards, in which she spoke about the ssues that gave rise to making the film and to her establishing an NGO called Think Equal.
Born in Israel, Leslee came to South Africa with her parents as a young child, and lived in Cape Town for ten years. She became acutely aware in her youth of issues of discrimination relating to both gender and race. This ultimately prompted her to leave South Africa, after starting her acting career in Cape Town’s Space Theatre. At the Space, Leslee worked with many leading actors, including Yvonne Bryceland, Richard E Grant and Henry Goodman. Many of our readers may remember the theatre, which stood out for its anti-apartheid stance, allowing people of all races to attend the theatre and to perform there, despite the racial laws in place at the time. “There was no way I was prepared to perform in ‘whites-only’ theatres,” Leslee explains, “and so my options became extremely limited from a work perspective. I had to leave the country to continue my career in the theatre, and so I moved to London when I was 21.”
After several years in London’s theatre world, Leslee moved into film production, and became involved in making films geared to create a social impact. Well-known films such as East is East and Who Bombed Birmingham? reflect this. They dealt with topics such as domestic violence, racism, miscarriage of justice and all make a plea for tolerance, inclusion and justice. Winning various awards (including the ‘British Oscar’ or BAFTA) as a filmmaker, Leslee’s position in the world of serious filmmaking was established.
India’s Daughter was made after the 2012 horrific gang rape in Delhi, India, of a young woman, Jyoti Singh, who eventually died of her injuries sustained during the incident. The crime sparked huge protests in India at the time, and it was this that prompted Leslee to make the film. She explains: “I was absolutely awestruck by the ordinary men and women of India who poured out onto the streets in response to this horrific gang rape and who demanded an end to the violation of women and girls. They were so courageous and I thought the least I could do was amplify their voices.”
While the film has been acknowledged in many countries for the importance of the issues it raises, and indeed has been credited with sparking a movement to end gender-based violence, it was banned in India, largely because it washed the national dirty linen in public. “I was accused in a fiery Lok Sabha (Indian Parliament) debate the morning after the ban of ‘decimating the tourist industry of India’.
“I learned a great deal about the world’s approach to the role of women in society,” Leslee explains. “It’s clear that in many societies – in both the so-called ‘developed’ world and in emerging economies – women are discriminated against and violated in unjust and even brutal ways,” Leslee says. “We have to change the attitudes that underpin this reality. This is why I created an organisation called Think Equal with a mission to revolutionise the global education system. More importantly, we have devised a tangible 4.5 kilogram pack of tools which deliver social and emotional learning for wellbeing, psychosocial support and social justice for 3-6-year-old children while their brains are being built. I am overjoyed at the momentum with which the cleansing fire of the movement and programme of Think Equal is being implemented around the world. In a mere eight years, we have reached 36 countries and seven of them have now commenced implementation compulsorily for every single child across the country.”
Read on here: Rollout of the Think Equal programme in Western Cape schools
You can view Leslee’s discussions about the film and about violence against women here and here.
Watch the documentary by streaming it on Apple TV or Amazon Prime.
More about Think Equal
This information is taken from the Think Equal website.
“Think Equal is a global initiative which calls for a system change in education, to end the discriminatory mindset and the cycle of violence across our world and ensure positive life outcomes for our children.
Together with world experts, Think Equal has designed a programme to teach social and emotional learning to early years (3-6-year-olds).
We ask governments, policymakers and school networks to adopt, and ideally mandate, this programme as a new subject from the age of 3: the optimal window to modify attitudes, values and behaviours, based on evidence from neuroscientists.
We ask those who have a duty of care to our children: ‘How can it be deemed compulsory for a child to learn mathematics, but it is optional for that child to learn how to value another human being or to lead healthy relationships?’.”
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