Synopsis:
Set in modern Birmingham, Land Gold Women revolves around a small British Asian family caught between their traditional past and the tumultuous, faction-driven present.
Avantika’s experience:
A Richer Lens’s maiden production, Land Gold Women was first conceived in London, where I was studying film at the London Film School. I remember sitting at the cafe in school one morning, reading the paper. An article about honour killing caught my eye. Honour killing? What was that?
I remember being completely gobsmacked as I read on. According to the article, the UK had a long history of witnessing honour killings and they were predominantly linked to South Asian and Middle Eastern communities. Now here I was a 26 year old Indian girl, brought up in Dubai, UAE, hearing about honour killings for the first time.
What was that about?
Cue: me falling in the rabbit hole of research and coming up shocked and horrified at what I’d found.
Honour killing is a practice by which women are killed because they have in some way threatened or broken the “honour” of the family to which they belong. Men are also killed, but statistics show that most victims are women. Honour in a community or family has roots in the idea of preserving a blood line; in ancient tribal codes when state law wasn’t a concept. Each tribe was responsible for their own survival and women, since they carried babies, were, and in a lot communities, are still seen is the custodians of this blood line. Invaders, always capture women first – not just because they’re considered easy targets but also because they can be defiled and that is seen as an insult to the men’s ability to protect their women.
5000 women killed every year for honour, by their own families, in their own homes and that number was increasing every year. The film was made in 2008, but even today in 2023, the numbers are astounding.
It happens across the world, across communities, across religious faiths. Binding them together, is this belief that women are entities to protect, like land and gold. They’re not entitled to choices, and even if they are – those are curated based on what will keep the safe, secure and acceptable to their larger communities.
Immigrant families from South Asia and the Middle East who saw the Western way of life as completely antithetical to their own, are the ones that were most deeply affected by Honour Killings. And Saira, the protagonist of this tale, walks this conflicted path – torn between the family she loves and the boy she desires.
As part of the research exercise, we worked closely with The Accord Group who provided safe homes to women threatened with honour violence. Hearing their stories in person meant there was no turning back.
Their story had to be told.
Shot over 28 days in Birmingham, Land Gold Women went to have a very successful festival run, even bagging the prestigious Indian National Award for Best Film in English. It released in theatres in India as is now available on Amazon US and UK. The film continues to serve as a tool for building awareness around the practice for the Metropolitan Police and we hope it will continue to shed light on why honour killings happen and what we need to change within our own families and communities to make it stop.
Here are some excellent resources if you wish to know more:
https://hbv-awareness.com/
About Honour Killing
https://www.endvawnow.org/en/articles/729-sources-of-international-law-related-to-honour-crimes-and-killings.html
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Honour_Killing_and_Violence/WPAWngEACAAJ?hl=en
https://www.google.co.in/books/edition/Honor_Related_Violence/EnVUDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=honour+killing+resources&printsec=frontcover
Vivek’s experience:
Land Gold Women, will always be special because it was our first film as A Richer Lens. Shot on an extremely low budget, the film’s cast and crew that came from over 10 to 12 different countries – Japans, France, India, UAE, UK, US – huddled up in a small hotel, in the outskirts of Birmingham, and became family for one month!
It was truly gratifying to see how this film then went on to have an incredible festival circuit run, and garner support from industry luminaries like Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Raju Hirani (clip below). The crowning moment was receiving my first National Award as producer!