Kamala and Raji
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"If we get rid of the fear in our own lives, we can go anywhere without a care..."
-- Kamala

Kamala and Raji is the moving story of two of the world’s “very poor”, two working women who survive on less than $1 a day, struggling to carve out a place for themselves in the modern world.

They live and work in Ahmedabad, the bustling capital of Gujarat State in western India, where both have become representatives for a grassroots organization called SEWA, the Self-Employed Women’s Association. SEWA was founded in Gujarat as one of the world’s first massively successful micro-credit schemes, created to assist women working on thier own or at piecework wages on the low rungs of India's occupational ladder.

From a background of deprivation and political impotence, Kamala and Raji have emerged as leaders striving to unite their fellow laborers and improve their deplorable working conditions.

More than an inspiring portrait of social action, Kamala and Raji offers an intimate look into two quite different women’s lives. As the film delves into their family, professional and political worlds, we come to know these remarkable characters through their own words and stories, their work, and their interactions. But it is the subtle positioning of the camera and the use of distance, space, and light that quietly throws their differences into relief, giving the film its weight and memorable grace.

Michael Camerini, Producer/Director/Cinematographer

National PBS broadcast on “P.O.V.”(Point of View) series.

From the Critics:

"It is the lyricism, always effortless and unrhetorical, which lifts the film into a more resonant category than that of circumscribed political message."-- Cineaste


Learn more about the Self-Employed Women’s Association: www.sewa.org

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