Building Bridges
Rahul Chandawarkar | Filmmaker
Documentary. 2012
English/Hindi. 60 minutes
Written, Narrated, Produced and Directed by
Rahul Chandawarkar
The non-fiction, documentary film, Building Bridges is a rare and comprehensive video documentation of Pakistan. It showcases a tour undertaken by an Urdu theatre group from Pune to Lahore to take part in the World Festival for Performing Arts. The theatre troupe built bridges with the people of Pakistan at a personal and emotional level.
The film has some rare, across the border footage. It documents the energy of common Pakistani people, the curiosity of Pakistani journalists, the intellectual depth of the Pakistani academia and culminates in some memorable sight-seeing in a city, which was once dubbed the Paris of the East. Journalist Rahul Chandawarkar, a first-time film maker is convinced that there is hope for better
relations between the two nations when he ends the film with
video footage of Pakistani pop-rock band, Strings performing in Pune almost immediately after the return of the theatre group.
Rahul Chandawarkar
Rahul Chandawarkar (50) is a Pune-based journalist and is presently the Resident Editor of the Sakal Times, the English newspaper from the Sakal Media Group. He was awarded the prestigious, Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award for environmental reporting in January 2012.
Chandawarkar is also a Fellow of the International Environmental NGO, LEAD (Leadership for Environment and Development), London. In his debut film, Building Bridges completed
in February 2012, Chandawarkar documents the journey of an Urdu theatre group from Pune which went to Lahore in 2004 to take part in the World Festival for Performing Arts.
