Alumni Update: Sudha Padmaja Francis

Sudha Padmaja Francis was the recipient of the Inlaks - Asia Art Archive Grant in 2022. She has recently released ‘Ginger Biscuit’, a documentary on the baking culture thriving in the small towns and villages of Kerala and beyond. Through extensive research carried out with the support of the grant, Sudha attempts to historicize a taste or a culture of making a taste, and its relation to its colonial past. 

It was recently shown at The South Asian Film Festival organized by the Federation of Film Societies of India in Kolkata. Its next screening is in Bhubaneswar, in September.

 We spoke with Sudha to know more about the film, her learnings and future plans. Read on to know more.

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Congratulations on the release of ‘Ginger Biscuit’. What inspired you to make a documentary on this specific subject?

All my previous films have also been based on micro histories and cultures from the region I come from. But ‘Ginger Biscuit’ had a more personal note to it. It is of having grown up eating these cookies, bread, cakes from these tiny bakeries, one of which I used to pass regularly to reach school. So the idea came from the fact that there is always conversation on the first ‘cake’ that was ever baked, but never really an archive of the labour and micro histories of banking in the region.

Can you share a bit about the research you undertook while making this film? What were some of the factors you kept in mind while gleaning information and translating it to film?

I  had set out to make a documentary/non-fiction film that explores this culture of baking that has curiously thrived in small towns and villages of North Kerala and went onto expand itself into many other parts of India. This work has itself turned out be an alternate route to enquiries into alternate/vernacular modernities and modernisms. One could easily ask the question, if baking would constitute as art? My work also aimed to push forth those boundaries of art, commercial art and craft which are in itself colonially constructed coupled with Brahmanical notions of ‘what constitutes art’. The ideas of labour, personal/local histories to a larger narrative of a colonial history  is what I have tried to explore in the film, centrally.

I had visited various places in Malabar over a span of 10 months, with my camera person Kamal K M who shot the visuals, and I myself recorded sound, with rented equipment. My editor Afsal AM and I took quite some time to arrive at this final narrative. Another thing that I have figured, different from my earlier films, is how to use all of the footage, without wastage, because it will also function as an archive. This primarily came from my discussion with people at Asia Art Archive, India. Also, even before I started filming I wanted to use excerpts from a novel I read, and then later collaborated with visual artist Rithun Manohar to animate these parts.

What were some of the biggest learnings over the course of its making, both in terms of cultural insights and the filmmaking process?

I had also set out to explore the idea of ‘recipe-books’ as part of my baking project. But during the course of my research and filming, I realised the idea of a recipe book itself is perhaps ‘alien’, and how the labourer’s memory becomes the site of recipes is more important, and how such ‘knowledge’ is understood as  not as something that needs to be documented. 

I have used my personal memory and photo archive in the film to draw connections and it is something that I have arrived at in practice right from the beginning. Even the use of voice-overs which might be deemed archaic now, is something I have discovered as being part of my filmic voice over the films I worked on. 

What ideas and themes would you like to explore next? 

 I have multiple themes or ideas I would  like to work on. One film is in development and I am part of the Public Service Broadcasting Trust Doc Commune 2024. It is very hard to find funding for independent non-fiction films in India. Even for this film, I have not quite been able to raise funds for post production work. Yet, with the grant and my own savings, I have managed to make the film. I am grateful and happy about that. Also I would like to thank my friend Chaitra who contributed financially to help finish the film.