All Was Good

  • 76'
  • India
  • 2022

Taking its sardonic title from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ill-fated words, Teresa Braggs’ All Was Good drops us amongst eclectic student groups protesting the proposed Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in the city of Bangalore. They coin slogans, sing songs of resistance and discuss politics in a social-media-savvy, international lingo. The casual camera captures their weary eyes, hoarse voices and inked fingers, the imprint of long nights spent in barricaded streets and makeshift shelters.

In September 2019, Modi assured expatriate crowds at a Houston rally that everything was fine back home. Weeks later, protests broke out across the country against the proposed CAA, which sought to introduce a religious criterion to regularising illegal immigration. Combined with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the act would potentially denaturalise marginalised individuals unable to prove their citizenship.

A fleeting glimpse of Utopia, All Was Good presents another vision of community, one mindful of irreconcilable differences and united under the secular Indian constitution. Burka-clad Muslim women join hands with Dalit and LGBTQ activists to lead the protests, pitting a different politics of identity against the NRC’s mandate of self-identification. Riddled with internal contradictions, the participants may not always agree, but they will have heard each other.

 

Srikanth Srinivasan

Director
Teresa Braggs
Premiere
Dutch Premiere
Country of production
India
Year
2022
Festival Edition
IFFR 2023
Length
76'
Medium
Digital
Original title
Sab Changa Si
Languages
Hindi, Urdu, Kannada, English
Producer
Teresa Braggs
Sales
Teresa Braggs
Cinematography
Teresa Braggs
Editor
Teresa Braggs
Sound Design
Teresa Braggs
Director
Teresa Braggs
Premiere
Dutch Premiere
Country of production
India
Year
2022
Festival Edition
IFFR 2023
Length
76'
Medium
Digital
Original title
Sab Changa Si
Languages
Hindi, Urdu, Kannada, English
Producer
Teresa Braggs
Sales
Teresa Braggs
Cinematography
Teresa Braggs
Editor
Teresa Braggs
Sound Design
Teresa Braggs

Programme IFFR 2023

Focus: The Shape of Things to Come?

In 2022, India celebrated the 75th anniversary of independence. But is really all well in the ‘world’s largest democracy’? Both documentaries and fictional narratives reflect on the socio-political development of the past 30 years – and ask: Is the institutional success of right-wing Hindu-nationalist groups and the persecution of dissenting voices a sign for the shape of things to come – and not only in India?

Read more about this programme