December 1 ( 2014)

Stills

BASAPURA is a tiny village. Madevappa works here in a flour mill, and his wife
Devakka makes rottis and sells in nearby towns. A school-going son, a daughter still in cradle and Madevappa’s aged mother are others in the family. It is a hand-to-mouth existence; but they have got used to it, with their own small pleasures and distant dreams.                                                                                                                                                         
The whole village is getting geared up for the Chief Minister (CM)’s visit on 1st December.  CM’s officially scheduled overnight stay in Madevappa’s house  naturally gives  Madevappa& family  extra attention from all quarters giving them the feeling of a higher status and a brighter future. They look forward to the event with all the zeal and enthusiasm.

Wide media coverage highlights CM’s exhortations on the need for humanitarian approach in dealing with people suffering from serious health setbacks. Though well intended it creates difficulties to Madevappa and family driving them to despair.

They lost their own root because of VILLAGE STAY!

This report had captured the after-effects of the much talked about, VILLAGE STAY of Karnataka Chief Minister, sometime in 2006. It set me thinking. A little more research led me to more details.  I felt, what is apparent is quite different from what the real problem is…

Churning of all these led me to making this film  “DECEMBER 1″.
 
Though the news-report was based on a true-story of a particular place, it could possibly have occurred anywhere else. But I have rooted this film in a North-Karnataka village for the sheer creative possibilities of that region, which I had not been able to explore hither to.