Drowned Out

Flawed and undemocratic, the government's Narmada river mega-dam scheme in Jalsindhi, central India, comes with a terrible price tag: appalling resettlement packages, catastrophic displacements to urban slums, the loss of land, self-sufficiency, history and a symbiotic, spiritual relationship to both land and river. Witness, therefore, some of the poorest peasant farmers in the country, standing chest-deep in rising water in their threatened villages, as they declare, 'We will drown but we will not move.' This compelling and committed film calmly builds an unanswerable case case against the scheme as it follows one village in its fight for survival.