Where Do the Children Play? (2019)

On the night of December 2, 1984, an accident at the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, released at least 30 tons of a highly toxic gas called methyl isocyanate, as well as a number of other poisonous gases. The pesticide plant was surrounded by shanty towns, leading to more than 600,000 people being exposed to the deadly gas cloud that night. Toxic material remains, and 35 years later, many of those who were exposed to the gas have given birth to physically and mentally disabled children. For decades, survivors have been fighting to have the site cleaned up, but they say the efforts were slowed when Michigan-based Dow Chemical took over Union Carbide in 2001. Human rights groups say that thousands of tons of hazardous waste remain buried underground, and the government has conceded the area is contaminated.

The title of the film is from a Cat Stevens song by the same name. The film is an expression of solidarity by the filmmaker with the Bhopal gas victims in their ongoing struggle for justice. In 2007, survivors of one of the world’s largest industrial disasters undertook a Padayatra from Bhopal to Delhi, to ask their Government to intercede on their behalf with Union Carbide and DOW petrochemicals, so that justice was done. The documentary records this excruciating journey of over 800 km. The film is a celebration of the resilience and will to live of our fellow citizens, against impossible odds. With the walk, the filmmaker also records the over 30-year movement for justice.