True Blue

India, 2018, 68’
Director and Scriptwriter: Swati Dandekar
Cinematographer: Srikanth Kabothu
Music: Sandeep Pillai
Sound: Suresh Rajamani, R Elangovan
Sound Design: Vipin Bhati
Editor: Rikhav Desai
Production Company: Prateet Films

What is the relationship between craftspeople and their craft? Is it the craft that sustains a practitioner or the practitioner, who keeps a craft alive? Can either survive without the other and what might their survival or destruction mean to society? This relationship is explored in True Blue though indigo, a dye well known from antiquity for its deep colorfast blues, so much so that it became a metaphor for things enduring. True Blue delves into the life stories of the few surviving indigo craftsmen in India. It observes the craftsmen as they go about the long process of making and using the dye, occasionally getting them to tell the story of what it means to practice this craft. The film also documents the land, the materials & tools that come from making indigo, work spaces that are extensions of the home, and work rhythms that follow the seasons. Inter-cutting with all this is the colour itself in its myriad of forms! The processes of indigo are almost magical to behold, as murky solutions transform into a vibrant blue, bit by bit. This is a blue that deepens, mesmerizes, stains and seeps into the skin and nails, indeed the lives of those who craft it.

Swati Dandekar
Swati Dandekar is a documentary filmmaker based in Bangalore, India, with a special interest in creating visual narratives of the living history around her; of people, places, ideas, traditions and practices. Her current work, spanning the last 3 to 4 years, focuses on craft as a way of life. Her past film work looked at urban India, in particular at the changes taking place in small towns and cities, and the impact of these changes on people’s lives. Currently, she teaches film at the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore.

Filmography
Story of a Municipality (2006),
A Question of Equity (2008),
Water and a City (2010),
True Blue (2018).