Chimbai
by Aliya Khan
Mumbai
Project Description
Chimbai is a multimedia documentary project about a 400 year old fishing village in Mumbai. It dives into the personalities, stories, and forces of nature that shape the village’s shifting tides.
Expected Impact
Chimbai is a documentary that profiles a centuries-old fishing village in flux, a neighbourhood layered with coastal traditions, interfaith histories, and resilience. The film weaves together the history of the village with the various communities that have come to call it home. It will create a vital record of one of the last remaining corners of what used to be before the metropolis sprawled across the topography of Mumbai. Our goal is two-fold: to preserve and archive the hyperlocal cultural heritage of Chimbai, and to centre the voices of those who live it. The Auster fund will help us breathe life into our film through collaborations with visual artists, animators, poets, and musicians from the village and its diaspora. We are building a collaborative, multimedia portrait of the community - its myths, rituals, recipes, sea lore, and inherited politics. The film is both document and dialogue: a living record that reflects the vibrancy of a fishing village and the fragility of its future. The Auster Fund will enable us to fairly compensate local artists contributing to the film - people like illustrator Kripa, whose children’s books are inspired by the village, or Parag Tandel, a Koli visual artist and ethnographer, and musician Chintamani Shivdekar, whose songs echo the memory of the Koli community. Our recent art workshop with Chimbai’s children facilitated creative expression of how they perceive their home. Children from across communities came together to share their home through art, a togetherness we hope to foster across the village through our work. Their work, as well as the work of the artists we have connected with, will create an immersive, multidimensional record of the world of Chimbai within the film and outside it. We also see this film as an entry point for new connections. Chimbai is tucked away in Bandra, home to an evolving contemporary art scene. Connecting local artists with the Bandra art community could offer exciting opportunities to homegrown talent. To this end, we are hoping to also create short form content from some of the footage from the film, to create a repository of the culture and tradition of Chimbai that is accessible to a wider audience. Ultimately, Chimbai asks who gets to be the narrator of culture. It offers a counter to top-down documentation by creating space for communities to represent themselves–on their own terms, in their own voice. Our hope is that this work not only preserves what exists, but strengthens what can grow from it: cultural equity, intergenerational continuity, and new local-global creative alliances.
Applicant Background
Currently we are a team of two: Aliya Khan Cinema taught me first how to listen, then how to reflect what I hear. I discovered this pull on my first project, assisting on a documentary about India’s trans community, where simply holding a frame steady created space for voices often pushed aside. Since then, I’ve pursued stories the spotlight misses - Sania, a rapper in a burkha from Shivaji Nagar, who used hip-hop to confront communal hate during COVID; Kashmiri children transforming poetry into resilience in their classrooms; and young women muralists painting gender-equality narratives on city walls. My goal is quiet gravitas: images that speak softly yet linger, opening space for those in front of the camera to speak. I entered film with the thought that people who are “creative” stayed clear of budgets - until documentary showed me producing is as imaginative as directing. Over the past two years I have produced the work I also direct, learning to carry projects end-to-end with skeletal crews. My practice draws from mixed media. Film, to me, is a flexible form - open to illustration, animation and sound used interestingly. It’s a way to remove the outsider’s gaze, and instead, let the film speak in its own voice. Tanvi Mehta My research and programming work in the social sector has taken me across contexts - from labour rooms to tribal collectives to construction sites. What fascinates me about this work is the ability to connect with people - to create space for them to share their stories. Years of field research, workshop facilitation and program design have taught me how to be attentive to the stories people tell, not only through what they say but also what they don’t. My interest in film stems from a desire to tell stories that are more empathetic through my work - to pay closer attention to what is unsaid and open space for the moments of poignancy that speak volumes. My experience allows me to situate these moments within the larger contexts they exist in, juxtaposing depth with breadth to bring the deeply personal into larger social, cultural and political structures. While Chimbai is my first encounter with filmmaking, there is undeniable resonance with my existing work and skills. This project lets me embody the duality of a storyteller who understands the practicalities of telling meaningful stories. As a team Together, we balance the creative process with a wide toolbox of planning and production skills. We approach the narrative of the film, and particularly these artist collaborations, with a dual lens - how does a hyperlocal culture speak to the long, winding history of a place? How do we facilitate empowerment without imposing external narratives on a community? Our collective experience enables us to balance sensitive facilitation with attentive storytelling.
Resources Needed
- Funding
- Mentorship
- Visibility
Support This Project
Connect with Aliya or learn more about the project or support in making this come to life.