Indian short on Tarapur power plant gets Yellow Oscar

Indian short on Tarapur power plant gets Yellow Oscar

Pradeep Indulkar

NEW DELHI: The documentary ‘High Power’ by Pradeep Indulkar on the Tarapur power plant in Maharashtra received the Best Short Documentary award at the 3rd International Uranium Film Festival of Rio Janeiro 2013 in the cinema of the Modern Art Museum (MAM) recently.

Six Films from six countries - Russia, India, USA, Estonia, Jordan and Germany - were honored with the Uranium Film Festival‘s trophy, the Yellow Oscar.

The festival screened 52 documentaries and fiction movies from 19 countries.

The 2013 finalised documentary "High Power" gives worthwhile impulses to current "nuclear question" in India.

Pradeep Indulkar, director of "High Power", is an Indian engineer who has been working during 12 years for India‘s nuclear programme.

High Power tells the disturbing story of the local population of Tarapur in the state of Maharashtra, where India‘s first nuclear power plant was constructed in the 1960s. Local fishermen families lost their land, their fishing grounds and health.

"It is an important, nuclear discussion stimulating documentary, that comes at the right time, when thousands of people in South-India struggle against a new nuclear power plant at Kudankulam is the state of Tamil Nadu", says Festival director Norbert G Suchanek. "High Power is Pradeep Indulkar‘s first documentary, and we hope to see more documentaries by him in future."

"Apart from all the sorrows and distress my film brought to you, this is a golden moment of my life as a filmmaker", said Indulkar during the Award Ceremony in the Museum of Modern Art cinema. "At this moment I remember and thank all my friends and well-wisher who helped in making of High Power. I also thank to all those Indian people who contributed even a smallest amount to make our trip happened. I thank you all who supported this film with as a great audience. I thank Rio, I thank Brazil and I accept this award on behalf of all the nuclear affected people of Tarapur and I dedicate this award to all those farmers and fishermen who lost their land, home and life for nuclear power plant."