Vaanavil: A Video Tour - Tamil Nadu, India

Marupakkam produces low cost videos on local issues, screening films made by fellow filmmakers, organises film festivals, translates films into Tamil from English, assists filmmakers to organise tours with their films and organises video workshops.
A write up about the tour will be sent to almost all the potential users and interested people in Tamilnadu. A minimum of one-month prior notice will beneeded for a tour in their geographical localities. When they are ready with enough resources to handle the budget and local arrangements, the tour will commence.
Marupakkam is planning to start tours from January 1, 2002. The tour can be between one to five days. They will provide a video cassette player, a video projector, requested films, and reading materials, which can be photocopied. The tour team will include 2 sets of people. The first will be organisers, who are volunteers from Marupakkam. The number of organisers will be between 2 and 4 depending upon the need. The second set will be facilitators, who may be activists, filmmakers, academicians and others. There will be a maximum of 4 screenings per day. Every screening will be followed by a discussion. The facilitators accompanying the team will help in introducing the films and in coordinating the discussions.

Children, Women, Ageing, Culture, Economic Development, Rights, Political Development, Environment, Agriculture, Education.

The need for films may be on any development issue/topic.
Films are being made in distinct styles on a wide spectrum of topics by filmmakers from different backgrounds. Though there is a demand among activists for these types of films, they are not necessarily adequately disseminated and used - at least not in Tamilnadu. Vaanavil is an attempt to bridge the gap.