BECAUSE WE DID NOT CHOOSE

English | Khasi | Pnar | Welsh | English subtitles | 92 minutes | Non-Fiction

Premiere: Nehru Centre, Indian High Commission, Mayfair, London, 2017

One hundred years have passed since the First World War began - the war was the beginning of all wars. Nations and communities all over the world have been directly or indirectly affected by it. Some of these experiences are evident today, while some have been internalised as time glosses over the pages of history. “Because We Did Not Chooses” looks at the First World War and the involvement of the Khasis, Jaintias and Garos at a time when the spaces they inhabited were transitioning or struggling to accommodate modernity and it’s implications. Shot over four years in India, France and England, this is perhaps the only film from India that examines the participation of labour in the theatres of the First World War.