Join media co-sponsor Jmore tonight, Nov. 10, at the Senator Theatre for the Mid-Atlantic debut of the award-winning documentary “Gods In Shackles,” the stark and shocking truth behind the pomp and pageantry of India’s temple elephants.
Award-winning journalist, director and executive producer Sangita Iyer, who risked her safety to capture the animals’ abuse on hidden cameras, will be in attendance to answer questions after the screening.
“Gods In Shackles” has won eight festival awards, including nomination at the prestigious International Elephants Film Festival at the United Nations General Assembly on World Wildlife Day, and a golden award from the World Documentary Awards.
The Baltimore benefit screening will help support distribution of the film in India to increase public.
Using interviews and undercover footage shot on location in Kerala, India, “Gods in Shackles” illustrates the brutal treatment of Indian temple elephants at the hands of their owners who exploit them for profit in the name of culture and religion, revealing a dark side of the southwest Indian coastal state’s glamorous festivals.
For example, it is not uncommon for the elephants to be paraded under the scorching sun and deprived of food and water, to the point that many of them collapse and die from heat exhaustion.
With less than 40,000 Asian elephants worldwide and 60 percent — about 26,000 — that live in India, the Toronto-based Iyer told Jmore, “There’s a moral imperative for this nation to protect [them]. They call them the cultural icon of India, and yet they’re being exploited under the name of culture and religion, so that is the paradox.”
Championing this cause and making the film “was very much of a divinely-guided endeavor,” Iyer said
In December of 2013 when visiting her hometown of Kerala, Iver toured some temples and witnessed celebrations. Iyer saw elephants tethered so tightly that they had “massive ghastly wounds on their hips and bleeding ankles,” she said.
But all around, “people are just dancing and singing and completely obvious to the pain and suffering of this animal. People are so engrossed in their own fun and joy that they don’t even see the suffering of this poor and amazingly majestic and intelligent animal.”
Iyer said she happened to have a mini-camera along during her travels, and she began “filming feverishly.”
Returning to Toronto with 25 hours of footage but unsure how to proceed, Iver said a colleague suggested that she employ crowd-source funding to make the film.
“I would never have even imagined the support that flowed from across the planet for a common cause, for a movement that everyone believes in so much,” Iyer said. She said she has been “humbled by the outpouring” from “so many elephant lovers, so many caring loving people.”
Iver returned with a very small crew to complete the film, and since then there have been benefit screenings to help fund an awareness campaign of the animals’ plight throughout India.
“When I returned to India in June of this year, in a historic move, the speaker of the general assembly screened this movie on the legislature’s grounds. That pushed everything to a much higher level than I ever imagined, and the media were all over it,” Iyer says.
Iyer said she has been “blown away” by audience reactions.
“It’s amazing that people are so deeply moved that at the end of the movie,” she said. “They come and hug and cry, and it’s like there’s a brotherhood and sisterhood. People want to be part of a massive movement. … These elephants have brought together the whole world for a common cause, that is to save our non-human brothers and sisters.”
Keith Shapiro and Jennifer Smelkinson Shapiro, members of Beth El Congregation in Pikesville, are also sponsors for the screening.
“They’re such warm and wonderful animals with a strong sense of community,” Smelkinson said. “We live in a world where the most innocent beings can’t be protected anymore. It just breaks my heart. It’s very tragic.”
“Gods in Shackles” screening will take place tonight, Nov. 10 from 7 to 9 p.m. at The Senator Theatre, 5904 York Road, Baltimore, MD 21212
The event includes the film, silent auction and raffle. Tickets for “Gods in Shackles” are $15 for students, $30 for general admission, and $75 for the Director’s VIP reception, which includes meeting filmmaker Sangita Iyer, a personalized “Gods in Shackles” poster and t-shirt, and snacks and drinks before the screening.
For information, visit http://www.godsinshackles.com/
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