DEJA VU

January 2021. In the middle of Covid and a frigid American winter, four Indians went on a ten-thousand-kilometer drive through the farming heartland of America. The backdrop was the continuing farm crisis in India and the recent launch of market reforms in this sector.

While the Indian government and mainstream economists claimed that these corporate reforms will help overcome the farm crisis and bring prosperity to farmers, the farmers in India mounted a defiant sit-in protest.

It turns out that four decades ago, similar reforms were ushered in in America – reforms that are universally extolled as a boon for both farmers and consumers. So, who benefitted from it? Who lost out? How did it affect small farmers and consumers?

Through personal experiences and human stories of small farmers in America, spanning four decades, the documentary Déjà Vu chronicles and traces the tortuous history of a much-trumpeted elixir and what it really portends for India’s future.

Déjà Vu is the confluence where past meets future.

  • Bedabrata Pain
    Director
    Chittagong
  • Bedabrata Pain
    Producer
    Chittagong, Amu
  • Rajashik Tarafder
    Producer
  • Sristy Agrawal
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 11 minutes 10 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    August 24, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    250,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    India, United States
  • Language:
    English, Hindi, Panjabi
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Bedabrata Pain

One of the inventors of CMOS digital image sensor technology that enabled the digital camera revolution - from cell-phones to movie cameras - Dr. Bedabrata Pain was an award-winning senior research scientist at NASA and Caltech for over 15 years. He holds over 90 patents and is an inductee to the US Space Technology Hall of Fame.

With his directorial debut Chittagong (2012) - starring Manoj Bajpayee, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rajkumar Rao, Vijay Verma, Jaideep Ahlawat - he won four Indian National Awards, including the prestigious Golden Lotus as the best first film and the best debut director, as well as awards in several international film festivals. Earlier, he was the executive producer of internationally acclaimed Amu (2005) and the documentary called Lifting the Veil (1997), and the writer of the book titled Behind the events in Kashmir (1991).

He has recently created a hard-hitting documentary titled Déjà vu – a unique take on the impact of corporatization of agriculture in the US and India. He is currently working on several feature films and web-series in India and in Hollywood.

He is a technology consultant to digital camera companies worldwide, including for the prime movie-camera maker RED Digital Cinema, where he has played a key role in developing nearly every single camera line.

Born in Calcutta in 1963, he received his B. Tech. degree from IIT Kharagpur in 1986, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University in 1992. He taught in UCLA from 1998-2008, and has received prestigious awards such as the Lew-Allen Award, NASA Inventors Award, and IIT Distinguished Alumnus Award.

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