Sad Song of Kidney

Life and death with kidney diseases

Working Hypothesis & Interpretations

Healthcare is a fundamental right of human being. Ensuring this right largely depends on
whether or not justice and equality exist in the society. Health condition of the citizen is
also related to the progress and prosperity of the state. But if we look into healthcare
system and public health situation in Bangladesh, it would not be an exaggeration to state
that the facilities have not been equally distributed among the citizens. The country has
nearly two crore kidney patients and a very little section of these patients are subject to
public or private health services. Most of the 20-40 thousand people who are reportedly
finding themselves with kidney dysfunctions every year are poor. Though the well-off
and the middle income patients can avail the opportunities of transplanting kidneys, the
number of low income people getting such scope is very insignificant. It is impossible for
them to afford the costs involved in collecting and transplanting kidneys, given the
provisions of the country's organ transplantation law. So the inevitable consequence when
the poor people, excepting one or two of them, face kidney dysfunctions is to await death.
It is one side of the coin. On the obverse side, there is a different picture. A section of rich
people in the society are increasing their life expectancy by sneaking up on and buying
the kidneys from the poor people. And this has been accomplished in liaison with a
quarter in the medical establishment.
Overview of findings in the kidney treatment scenario:

Due to lack of knowledge and access to the healthcare system, many of the
patients who could be cured from kidney diseases through diagnosis at the early
stage sadly ends up with kidney dysfunctions.

There is almost no facility for the treatment of kidney diseases outside Dhaka.
Even patients living with dysfunctions of a major portion of their kidneys have to
travel to Dhaka from distant regions to have the dialysis.

There has been no extensive government initiative for building awareness about
kidney diseases.

Financially vulnerable people, who depend on their labouring body to earn their
breads and also believe in the unity of the body, become a burden to the family
when they face kidney dysfunctions. Relatives are also found to be reluctant to
donate the kidney to the ailing person. And due to the high expenses of kidney
transplantation, the person is forced to leave the hospital/clinic after several
dialysis and return home to simply await the death. In many cases, severe patients
die at hospitals.

When middle income or well-off people face Kidney dysfunctions, they look for
potential kidney sellers through brokers, rather than collecting it from close
relatives. In the past, the procedures used to be carried out in liaison with quite a
good number of specialist doctors in the county. Several hundred kidney
transplantation took place under such process at renowned pubic and private
hospitals in Dhaka over the last decade. However, as the media have published
reports on the issue, illegal kidney transplantation in the country has almost
turned out nil in these days. Despite that, huge kidney transplantations are taking
place outside the country, particularly in India, through the mediation of the
brokers. The brokers are being able to send the donors and the recipients to
foreign countries for getting the transplantations done by making fake passports,
citizenship certificates and relationship certificates. Poor people, who are
entangled in loan traps, or ended up badly in small businesses, find it a short-cut
solution to earn a fortune by selling their kidneys. Kalai upazila of Jaypurhat
district, a northern district of the country, has now turned into a kidney market.
The network of the brokers now extends over the slums in Dhaka, villages in
Kalai, and also outside the country.

The financial condition of the kidney sellers in Kalai upazila has not changed at
all. A portion of the money from the kidney selling is siphoned off by the brokers.
Most of the sellers are spending the money for repaying the loans and health
recovery. Livelihoods of many of the sellers are at stake as they are unable to
engage in labour intensive works. Quite a few of them have been suffering from
serious ailments now.

Following the news coverage on kidney selling in Kalai in newspapers and

television channels, the government filed cases against some of the doctors and
brokers involved in it. Although some of the accused persons gave confessional
statements after their arrests, no one has been punished yet.

Due to huge shortage of beds at government hospitals, patients with late-stage

kidney dysfunctions are forcibly released to make room for new patients.

Although the Human Organ Transplantation Act allows organ collection under the
criterion of brain death, no step has been taken yet to create awareness about it.
Besides, the law does not make it clear who will be the person to certify the
relation between the donor and the recipient. So the doctors are reluctant to take
the responsibility of illegal kidney transplantations on their own shoulders.
The healthcare system of the country amply reflects the relation that exists
between the state and the individual in general. Like other sectors in the society,
the healthcare system is divided where rich-poor, public-private, kidney donorkidney recipient, doctor-patient have turned out to be opponents of each other.
Ensuring a fundamental right like healthcare is no more considered a
responsibility of the state. Rather, it is now left to be decided on the individual's

social capital and financial capacity. Health services, like most other things, have
become a commodity. Poor people do not have any access to this system. The
state takes a very little responsibility for the remedial when they fall sick.
Like labour and wealth, limbs and organs of the human body have now
transformed into products. Despite technological advancement that had made
possible the expansion of a sophisticated remedial like that of the organ
transplantation industry, it has turned out to be a buyable product for the patients.
It is the patient who will have to take the responsibility to collect the kidney.
Medical ethics has undergone a sea change due to this individualis
=ion. Man has become the life now. And to secure a win over life, the life of
someone else is being violated. The one who can afford to buy the healthcare
facilities is in control over life. The poor people are mere godown of spare parts in
this system. It is their misery that has opened up the opportunity for the potential
kidney recipients.

We want to expose in this film

Poor people are neglected by the existing healthcare system.

The absence of state buffering has been one of the major reasons behind the
monetization of a colossal social practice like kidney transplantation. Though,
numerous kidney patients can be benefited through equal distribution of facilities,
if the state could be forced to take the proper initiatives.

The case of Kalai is an example of the collapse of our social cohesion and
understanding. Kidney selling has become a usual undertaking for many in Kalai.
The 'surplus' kidney has become their last hope, their ultimate collateral.

No win-win situation exists in kidney 'trading'. It is the necessity of the buyer that
is being privileged, the rhetoric of scarcity of kidneys is being created for the
interest of the receiver. The sufferings of the sellers remain unnoticed under the
shadow of sympathy towards the receiver. Media/hospital/doctors put the blame
of law violation on the seller, hiding the recipient.

A quarter among the doctors and staff of various organisations were alleged to be
involved in kidney sourcing and transplantation.

It is impossible for the working class people to earn their livelihoods after losing a
kidney.

Receiving kidneys from non-relatives can never be justified by any logic.

Topic
The aim of the film will be to reveal the kidney business going on in the country by
placing the mobility, thoughts and activities of different stakeholders involved in kidney
transplantation in the greater context.
As transplantations take place only at the last-stage of kidney diseases, this film will also
incorporate experiences the patients undergo during the primary stages of the illness. But
transplantation will remain at the centre of the spectrum. The complex human aspects
will be given shape by giving space to doctors, kidney sellers, kidney recipients, brokers
and other social actors (who will participate in the film on the basis of their own
experiences). This film will narrate separate trajectories of legal and illegal
transplantations. As considering the issue only from human point of view will not provide
enough scope for having a complete overview of kidney diseases, patients and treatment,
this film will also incorporate thoughts and opinions of experts, social scientists and legal
experts in it. The perspective of the filmmaker will be built upon the sum of different
thoughts and opinions presented in the film.
Filmic background
Access to people, places and events will contribute in determining the shape and structure
of the film. The doctors will not easily give in their professional cloak. Besides, the
illegal kidney recipients and brokers will naturally try to avoid film camera. As a
consequence, the nature of their presence in the film is likely to undergo adjustments. In
such contexts, privileged information (information related to specialised knowledge
and revealed by researchers, experts or institutions), newspaper reports, interviews
that appeared in the media, confessions, audio interviews etc. will provide us with the
alternatives.

Although the vastness of the issue demands interaction with a huge number of
people, it can not be entertained in the limited scope of the film. Only a limited
number of carefully selected social actors will be presented on the screen. This
film will be a subjective encounter of the filmmakers with the general scenario of
kidney diseases.

Numerous incidents of deaths, deceptions, illegal transplantations are taking place

due to kidney diseases. The scenario is changing every moment. Newer elements
are being added to it. The success of this film will largely depend on the
visualisation of the most quintessential of the incidents. And it will also require
candid image. To fulfill these requirements, a significant portion of the film will
be shot with handheld camera. The film unit will follow the social actors at
different places across the country for quite a long period. Uncertainty and
unpredictability of different incidents will add up new dimensions to the film.

The filmmakers will perform as activists in this film. Although they will take off
the cloak of objectivity and participate in different events, their presence on the
screen will be very brief. But their thoughts, opinions and ethical position will be
categorically expressed in various issues that are going to be raised in the film.
Even the viewers will be made aware of the filmmaking process. The filmmakers
will exercise their authorship from their position as participant observers, but with
due respect to the activities of the social actors. However, this principle may be
violated in a non-coercive process if people like brokers or those who assist in
illegal sourcing of kidneys, and, thus, pose threat to public health, decline to give
interviews.

The kidney treatment scenario is so complex and inaccessible that all the facets in
it can not be perceived only through observation. In this respect, it will be
necessary to intervene in the situations as well as with the narrative strategy. The
film's development will be determined by interventions at two levels at the outer
level, undercover shooting will be needed because the visualisation of the
activities of brokers, potential kidney sellers, and of doctors and staff of hospitals
and clinics who are involved in blood test, tissue typing etc. can only be availed
with hidden camera. On the other hand, information, data, voice records and
description of events, that are going to be sourced in various ways, will be
compiled to pave a flawless context for the enactment and reenactment. This is a
ploy to be able to change the narrative through intervention when it will be
necessary. We may require the enactment to show how the brokers make fake
identity card, passport, relationship certificate etc. and how the brokers and
kidney buyers happen to meet the relatives of the patient, not to mention its use
during the interviews.

Action Sequences
i) Kidney patients along with their relatives enter and exit through the hospital gate.
Many patients are lying on beds of the hospital. The filmmakers talk to several patients
and their relatives. Doctors arrive, move around the beds and examine the patients. When
the doctors go away, we come to know from the conversation between the filmmakers
and the relatives of the patient that it is the last-stage of the disease. The transplantation
could not be undertaken as the kidney is not available. The patient also lacks the financial
means. The filmmakers talk to another patient suffering from kidney dysfunctions.
His/her relatives are trying to collect the kidney. A doctor in his/her interview with the
filmmakers talks about the limitations of the treatment facilities. Referring to the patient
at the last-stage, he/she says nothing can be done in such cases with the existing facilities.
After that, the relatives of the patient pack off the bedding and leave the hospital taking
the patient with them.

The other well-off patient who is suffering from kidney dysfunctions returns home after
the dialysis. He/she is attended by close relatives at home. One among the family
members informs that one of the relatives has agreed to donate the kidney. He informs the
filmmakers about the progresses made in the kidney transplantation process.
This sequence will provide the audience with an introduction to the overall scenario of
kidney treatment. It will be constructed in a manner that can attract the attention of the
audience to the inadequacy of the government health facilities. This sequence will help
the audience in comprehending the situation. They will be informed: A large portion of
the kidney patients go to hospitals in such a severely ill condition that they are left with
no choice other than having kidney transplantation. As the poor lacks the financial and
social capacity, it is impossible for them to make the arrangements for such a costly
treatment like kidney transplantation. For them, the end result of kidney dysfunctions is
death. In the existing healthcare system, only the well-off people can afford the kidney
treatment and transplantation.
ii) Standing beside a road in a crowded place, potential kidney seller and broker talk to
each other. The subject of their conversation is the price of the kidney and the dates and
places of the transplantation. In the next scene, the two are seen to go inside the home of
the kidney receiver. Again they talk about the process of the money-transfer and what
responsibilities will lie with whom.
The interview of the kidney receiver's relative who is involved in the kidney buying
process will be juxtaposed in this sequence. He will watch the visual of the reenactment
and comment on its authenticity.
This sequence will help narrativising the story and also to keep the continuity of the
events. The unidentified kidney seller will transform into a character of the film at this
stage. The context of the broker's activities is going to be established here while the
human aspect of the kidney recipient's problem made clear.
iii) The kidney seller is seen selling fruits in the market on a market day. In the next
scene, he is seen to stack the fruits at the stoop of his house. His mother is sitting at one
side of the home yard. His wife is seen hanging washed clothes on a clothesline. The
filmmakers greet them and later move into a conversation with the mother and the wife,
inquiring them about the various issues related to the family. The kidney seller gives the
interview at the stoop of the house. Besides speaking about himself, he often alludes to
other kidney sellers, brokers and gives an idea about the situation of the area and other
relevant matters. He gives an account of the members of his family, and about the wife of
his elder brother. His wife cooks food at the home yard. The elder brother's wife is seen
washing the household utensils in cross-cut. The kidney seller, his mother, his wife and
the children have their launch at the house. The elder brother's wife is also seen having
her launch with her son. After that, the woman kidney seller talks elaborately about the
reason behind her kidney selling, current status, physical ailment etc. in an interview.

The kidney seller is seen working as a day labourer in a field owned by another person.
Returning home after the day's work, he faces straight to the camera and starts a selfaddressed speech about his vulnerable condition and the uncertainties around.
The scenes in the sequence will mainly show the conditions of a family that consists of
more than one kidney seller. Scenes shot at different places and times will be brought
together while representing the kidney seller. At some points, a relation will be drawn
between separate events through intercutting and juxtaposition.
This sequence will show various aspects of the uncertainties around lives and livelihoods
of the kidney sellers. Although they are saving the lives of others by donating the kidney,
no one is concerned over their survival and fitness. They are not criminals. They are
rather precarious, and abandoned by the state and the society. Their desire to live with
dignity and in financial stability has not been fulfilled by the selling of the kidney.
One of the aims of this sequence is to make the potential kidney sellers aware about the
consequences of kidney selling. Both of the two kidneys in a body are needed to live
healthily and with fitness to earn the livelihoods this message will be given to the
audience by the kidney sellers in this sequence.
iv.a) The local broker brings potential kidney sellers along with him in Dhaka and leads
them through blood tests, tissue typing and various other health tests at clinic/hospital.
Next to that, he introduces the potential seller with the representative of the potential
recipient.
Two among the local people will be chosen for this sequence. They will contact the
brokers by posing as they want to sell the kidney. Among these two, one will shoot the
whole process with undercover camera. For that, they may require to travel from Kalai to
Dhaka more than once.
iv.b) A person involved with the film unit will contact the broker at Dhaka, looking for
kidney sellers. He will introduce himself as a relative of the kidney patient. The meeting
and the conversation between them will be shot with hidden camera.
As the sequences are open to a set of different prospects, both of them are not fully
conclusive. For the first sequence, there is a possibility the broker might travel to Dhaka
alone. There is a possibility of meeting them anywhere outside hospitals or clinics.
In both the first and the second sequences, doctors, staff, and even the health institutions
might be found to be involved with the kidney sellers and brokers in the illegal
transplantation process. Apart from this, many things can take place that are hard to
imagine prior to the events.
The audience will be attracted to both the sequences due to their significance as
evidences. Both the sequences will prove that brokers are involved in the black marketing
of kidneys. These two sequences will also play an instrumental role in the narrativisation
of the story. The trajectories of the kidney seller and the receiver will be determined

through the brokers activities. In addition, the audience will reach to a new
understanding about the broker from their viewing experience. The harsh trickery of the
broker when he tries to convince the kidney seller by saying that kidney donation is a
venerable and benefiting endeavour will be clearly exposed before the audience.
Apart from the allurement of money by the brokers and the poor condition of the sellers,
the scarcity of transplantable kidneys is a more crucial factor the black market of
kidney has developed because of the factor that the supply is awfully insufficient
compared to the demand. Even if the government bureaucrats, doctors and others
concerned deny the allegation, these two sequences will try to establish that kidney
business is going on.
v) Having an interview with the illegal kidney recipient:
Attempts will be made to have an interview with the person who will receive the kidney
of the kidney seller who has already been established on the screen. Both of them will
become the integral parts of the film's narrative. Attempts for availing such a person
might not come up with the success.
If the kidney receiver refuses to talk, his/her refusal will be shown in the film. A new
narrative will develop upon the reorganisation of the details of the history of his/her
correspondence with the seller, financial transaction, transplantation process etc.
The visuals of this sequence are not likely to exhibit the unity of space, time and action. It
will turn into a sequence by taking the shape of a topic through the organisation of the
materials.
This sequence will accumulate the financial condition and crisis of the kidney recipient.
He/she is extending his/her life expectancy utilising the financial needs of the poor. It is
not only a violation of the law, but also an ethically unacceptable endeavour. Meanwhile,
it is also true that in the existing healthcare business, the responsibility of collecting the
kidney lies only with the patient. Everything depends on his/her financial capacity and
social capital. It becomes exclusively his/her struggle. The state does not take any
responsibility in this regard. Such a detachment between the citizen and the state is a
result of extreme individualism. This sequence will shed lights on the factor that the
survivalist strategy of the illegal kidney receiver as well as the indifference of the state
are interrelated.

Main characters
The development of the characters depends on their roles in the stream of actions,
interactions with others, and on their relevance with the context of the film. Besides
incorporating linear characters for their identification with the problem, a few of the
characters will undergo a development due to the multiplicity of actions involved, not to
mention characters will be shown as representatives of their community or profession.
Kidney patient: Those who will appear in the beginning of the film will be the kidney
patients at the primary stage of their ailment. The present scenario of kidney treatment
will be exposed by showing their huge number compared to the inadequacy of the
healthcare facilities as well as the lack of financial means of most of the patients. But this
episode will be very brief. Very shortly afterwards, the film will evolve around a parallel
story of severely ailing patients both the haves and the have-nots. And the parallel story
will be unfurled in different phases, in segments as per the requirement of dramatisation
of the structure. We want to visualise the complex processes the kidney patients have to
undergo for the transplantation that include finding out the kidney donors, having
numerous tests and preparing the documents. This film will narrativise all the prospects
and uncertainties in the kidney patient's life such as his/her survival by regular dialysis
after the kidney failure, legal and illegal kidney transplantation or death.
Kidney seller and his/her community: Before the credit title appears on the screen, the
film will introduce a kidney seller. The slant marks of a cut on his skin from around the
waist to chest areas of the body will be exposed on the screen. Following that the
filmmakers will involve one sociologist and some doctors in a discussion on the issue of
black market that has developed due to the want of transplantable kidneys. Right after
that, a reenacted scene will bring into view a conversation among a real kidney seller,
broker and the film participant posing as the relative of a kidney receiver. They will talk
about the kidney price and the time and place of the payment. This kidney seller will
appear again for the third time in the setting of his own home in Kalai, Jaypurhat. His
everyday life will be the subject of the film. How he is doing with pulling a CNG-run
autorickshaw besides running a small shop, his family life with his wife and daughters,
and his interaction with the neighbours will be followed by the camera in observational
shooting.
One along with his father, brother and brother's wife turned out to be kidney sellers will
appear at the centre of this episode. The person has no definite profession. He runs his
family sometimes by selling fruits at the village market, pulling rickshaws or by working
as a day labourer some other times. He will also depict more stories of kidney selling by
other members of the family. The reaction of his mother and wife in this connection will
also be included in the film. The filmmakers will want to learn about some other factors
about the family. The kidney sellers father, who is also a kidney seller, will appear very
briefly. Simultaneously, the financial hardship of his brother's wife, who has been
abandoned by the family for selling kidney, will appear in cross-cutting.

Because of his extrovert character, the latter kidney seller will guide us to other kidney
sellers and sections of the community. The other kidney sellers who will be introduced in
the film through him will have a brief presence in the film. At some instances, their
presence can only be limited to brief interviews. He will also find out the persons whose
various assistances will be required for the film work. Among them, one or two may even
appear on the screen as social actor.
In this film, the community of the kidney seller will be given as much importance as
him/her. Kidney selling at the community-scale can only be noticed in a few unions of
Kalai and this indicates a great fracture in social cohesion and solidarity. To understand
the significance of this fact, we want to inquire about the relations between the kidney
sellers and the others of the society. We want to place the kidney selling process as well
as the sellers in the wider context.
The community will be portrayed in two ways mobility and network of kidney sellers
will be visualised along with the unfolding of the investigation by the filmmakers. The
kidney seller will appear in different roles like bread-earner, citizen and customer when
he/she will interact with others in the community. Besides, he/she will be in frequent
interaction with the relatives and neighbours. The opinions of these people during their
presence in the activities and conversations of the kidney-seller may appear as
representational of the community. The filmmakers will also talk with community
leaders, officials of the administration, students, teachers, journalists among others. They
will covey the opinion of the community people in the setting of playgrounds, tea stalls,
schools and colleges. That rumours and stories of kidney selling are in the air of the
locality will be made clear by their statements. Many of them will be providing us with
various assistances like finding the potential kidney sellers, informing us about the
brokers, and providing us with local newspapers and documents of kidney treatment and
transplantation.
Broker: Besides encouraging the poor people in the selling of their kidneys, the brokers
have mastered all the tricks to tackle all the obstacles they are likely to face in the
community. He has huge experience of facing the law enforcement officials and
journalists. As it is unlikely that we can make him confess his involvement in kidney
selling, we'll adopt a different policy here and try to intervene with the assistance of the
people of the community. Local people will be posed as potential kidney sellers and their
accomplices. They will come to Dhaka along with the broker to communicate with the
potential recipients. The accomplice of the potential kidney seller will shoot the total
process with the hidden camera.
If the visualisation of the brokers activities could not be done using the hidden camera,
the character of the broker will be constructed with the use of footages from television
channels, news report, case records, confessions made by the brokers before the court,
witness accounts, and by approaching the brokers directly.
Sociologist: Apart from those directly involved in kidney treatment and transplantation,
the sociologist will appear as one of the key characters who will gradually undergo

developments with the progress of the film. He/she will perform as a social actor besides
the doctors. He/she will also participate in the events of the film as a researcher. He/she
will be seen interacting with various patients at different stages of their ailment from
the patients with general kidney ailments to those with serious illness. He/she will be
established at the beginning of the film. He/she will be seen working with clippings of
various newspapers, documents, research papers, photographs of patients and other
objects. He/she will gradually try to communicate with the relatives of kidney recipients.
As part of her research, he/she will conduct a focus group discussion with kidney sellers
at Kalai.
His/her role will transform with the progress of the film. At the first instance of his/her
conversation with doctors, he/she will remain mostly a listener. Later on, at the second
stage, he/she will become more active by raising questions. Gradually this will take the
shape of exchange of views between each other. And at the final stage of the film, he/she
will express his/her opinion directly to the audience. He/she will analyse the lack of
interest for collecting cadaver organs for kidney treatment. It will be clearly exposed
from his/her conversation with doctors that the main reason for the commercialisation of
the relations between the kidney sellers and the recipients is the absence of government
intervention. At last, he/she will give his opinion in favour of indirect donation and
recommend for undertaking coordinated awareness programmes.

Structure
The narrative of the film will evolve through three phases. The first phase will contain the
scenario of kidney treatment inadequacy of the healthcare facilities compared to the
number of patients, imbalance between the demand of transplantable kidney and the
availability etc will be focused in this part. The second phase will turn around the
relations among donor/seller, receiver and other parties involved in the transplantation
process. Both the legal and the illegal transplantation processes will be shown through the
visualisation of various events along with the delineation of those who have practical
experiences. The third phase will partly be analytical; most of it will engage in
narrativisation of events. After placing the opinions of experts, doctors, social scientists,
lawyers and others about the existing situation, the film will be ended with the parallel
representation of two patients one that have availed the proper healthcare facilities and
the other who have been deprived of it.
Although events and actions will play an important role in the film, the information in
most cases will be provided through interviews and conversations.
Kidney patients of various types, and patients in various stages of the ailment, will be
shown in hospitals and dialysis centres in the capital as well as in the small towns. Next
to that, the doctor will provide us with the general overview and information about
kidney diseases, patients and the healthcare system in his/her interview with the
sociologist.

Details about kidney business will be presented through reenactments and interviews of
the close relatives of the recipient. A real kidney seller and the person playing the role of
the broker will take part in the reenactment. A primary notion of the whole process can be
made out of their interactions. More informations in this regard will be gathered through
the undercover shooting. People posing as potential kidney sellerd from the community
will come to Dhaka along with the broker. If all the visuals starting from their journey to
the medical tests they undergo can be shot undercover, it will provide the audience with
some foods for thought about the illegal transplantation. While the ethical positions of
doctors, sociologist, lawyers and others are going to be revealed in their discussions, they
will also give crucial information on various subjects.
In the climactic sequence at the heart of the film, the viewers will come across two
patients, both suffering with the dysfunction of their pair of kidneys. One of them has a
good prospect of collecting the kidney from among his relatives. He has been on dialysis
at regular intervals. The other will neither have the chance of collecting the kidney from
another person, nor will be able to afford the cost of treatment. In such situation the first
one is likely to survive while the other is bound to die.
The country has a huge number of kidney patients. Among them, thousands of people
face kidney damage every year. So the sequence made of the parallel stories of the two
patients will easily correspond to the situation where a huge number of patients are
shown in the context of the inadequate healthcare facilities in the beginning of the film.
The uncertainties as well as prospects of their lives will be the direction the film will
move into. Depending on the chances of having the kidney, one of them will survive, and
the other will die. Many of them will look for the kidney in the black market rather than
collecting it from the relatives. This is the main tendency of the kidney transplantation
process now. So a major focus of the film will be the exchange of kidneys in the black
market. With the extension of the climactic sequence, doctors, sociologist and lawyers
will start analysing the events as an outcome of flaws in the policy and system. And at the
end, we will face the parallel stories of one patient surviving after the kidney
transplantation and another dying after failing to manage it as an outcome of the sequence
narrated above.

Form and Style

The film will be participatory in nature. The filmmakers will participate in the events in
lives of the kidney patients, receivers, sellers and donors in their respective contexts.
Their aim will be to generate a corporeal and visceral feeling of their lives in the film.
The bodily presence of the filmmakers will be felt in the film. The film will be a situated
engagement, negotiated and emotion-laden encounter between the filmmakers and the
subject. The visual will hinge on the nature and quality of the interaction between the
two. Their role will be central in the unfolding of the narrative.

Instead of moving into the details of kidney diseases, this film aims at unveiling the
devastating impact of it on the lives of numerous people. The film will be constructed
upon the intervention of the filmmakers in the lives and experiences of the kidney
patients. Events, characters and topics will be sorted out in consideration of the quality,
access and opportunity of the representation. Only a few social actors or characters like
doctors, donors, sellers and recipients will appear in the film against the huge scenario.
The narrative of the film will be generated from the new situation created by the
intervention of the filmmakers in the lived lives as well as the present activities of the
kidney patients. So it will turn into an intimate view or a view from the ground rather
than becoming a view from the top a subjective encounter with the present situation of
kidney treatment.
At a few points in the film, including in the beginning, first person commentary will play
the guiding role. But it will be very brief. The voice of the filmmakers will emerge from
the fabric of the contributing voices. The function of the brief reflexive commentary will
be to establish a bridge between the past and present by linking up bits of the narrative.
The narrative construction will also rely on the appropriate organisation of dispersed
shots, inert images, documents, paper clippings etc.
Interview and conversation will play an important role in the formation of the film. The
former one will regulate the form of exchange that will provide privileged information.
This process will help the filmmakers in addressing those who will appear in the film to
explain various things. A single interview will be cut into fragments and used at different
points in the film based on the requirements of the narrative. Besides this, it will help
aligning various accounts in a single story. Fragments of interviews will be juxtaposed to
represent the differences in opinions or points of views. On the other hand, the
conversation will mainly be informal in nature so that it can help us understand the
particular setting, event and situation. This will come to more helps comparatively when
the filmmakers will be required to take positions for their participation and other aspects.
We want to follow the everyday life of kidney patient, illegal kidney receiver and kidney
seller with hand held camera. Our target will be to make a realistic representation of their
lives. But the nature of this candid filmisation will take its ultimate shape in the editing
table where the observational nature of the filmisation will be obstructed to show the
inner relations and gaps among the social actors and characters through juxtaposition,
intercutting and back and forth organisation of visuals. At the last stage, the opposite lot
of the privileged and the non-privileged patients will be represented through parallel story
telling. The extempored visuals will also undergo changes through editorial intervention
at this point.