PANDI

To end March Break, we had a family movie night at The Dorset Park Community Hub where children watched How To Train Your Dragon (amazing movie, the second one is better, I promise :) and parents watched a clip from a documentary created and artistically mastered by Maria-Saroja Ponnambalam. The documentary shares her families story of silence and stigma, and investigates her Uncle Pandi's unexplained death. Pandi, an aspiring film director himself, began experiencing symptoms of bi-polar after migrating from India to Canada. A mix of interviews with family, home videos, letters and animated scenes from Pandi's last script reveals his deep isolation and creative drive towards the final phase of his life.

The event was well attended and the discussion was engaging and insightful. I am so thankful that Saroja and her family came to the event and shared their story; on behalf of FAME, Agincourt Community Services Association and the Scarborough Community, we want to say thank you again for their time and dedication in sharing such a powerful story.

The documentary speaks to a greater need for challenging stigma around mental illness and while we have come a long way, we still have far to go. This film, which is Saroja's first feature documentary, highlights the need for cultural awareness, education and acceptance around mental illness. While we only got a sneak peak of the film during the event, please stay tuned as I will be planning with Saroja to have a full length screening of the documentary in the future.

Maria-Saroja Ponnambalam has a BFA in Film Production from York University, and is currently completing her MA in Human Geography at the University of Toronto. She is Canadian born, of South-Indian and Venezuelan parents. Saroja's artistic talent did not stop at 'Pandi', her other documentaries include THE CONSEQUENCE OF RAIN (Venezuala, 2008), and PRETTY LITTLE BITS (Canada, 2009) which have been screened at various festivals around the world. Saroja, hopes to continue working on artistic and well-crafted films that have a greater social impact.

www.thepandistory.com