film detail

Set against the backdrop of the world’s largest kite festival in Gujarat, India, Utran Conversations documents the preparations for this huge visual spectacle which marks the transition from winter to summer. The Festival serves to bind together different communities and crosses religious divides. It also provides a complex infrastructure for the employment of thousands of homeworkers engaged in the in the manufacture and distribution of kites and associated apparel. However, all of this comes at a major environmental cost, particularly to the local wildlife as the balance of the natural ecosystem is disturbed by the presence of the glass coated threads which are used in the kite flying and fighting rituals, even causing human fatalities. Exploring these themes and issues the film uses a multiple series of ‘conversations’ with key players from kite makers to kite flyers and wildlife NGO’s, set around the event of the Utran Festival itself.