Men in Blue
Austin, Texas | Film Short
Drama
Inspired by actual events, MEN IN BLUE explores the effects of human trafficking and labor exploitation in the United States. This is a work of fiction that shows the resistance among the Indian immigrants who were conscripted as guest-workers to repair ships damaged after Hurricane Katrina in 2007.
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This campaign raised $32,620 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
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Inspired by actual events, MEN IN BLUE explores the effects of human trafficking and labor exploitation in the United States. This is a work of fiction that shows the resistance among the Indian immigrants who were conscripted as guest-workers to repair ships damaged after Hurricane Katrina in 2007.
In Partnership With
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
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MEN IN BLUE is inspired by the actual events of Indian immigrants in coastal Texas. The film is constructed as a digital narrative to explore the effects of human trafficking and labor exploitation in the United States. It is set at an established shipyard populated with Indian labor immigrants who were conscripted as guest-workers to repair ships damaged after Hurricane Katrina in 2007. Stemming from our fieldwork among the immigrant workers, the film reimagines the events and tells a fictional story of what could have happened if the workers had a powerful weapon like a camcorder to document what is happening to them by recording their testimonies. These testimonies shown in the film through a camcorder are actual lines written by the real shipyard workers who were exploited. This is the truth we are bringing to our fiction.
Our main protagonist is VIJAYAN, a 54-year-old man. Other supporting characters are GEORGE and ALI. All these three men hail from different states in India. They speak different languages. They practice different religions, and they come from diverse backgrounds. Lured by the shipyard’s fraudulent promises of legal and permanent work-based immigration to the United States for themselves and their families, these men plunged their families into debt in India. Upon arriving in the USA, they realized that all their dreams were shattered, and they were subjected to inhumane treatment by the shipyard. These men who were unaware of their labor rights in this foreign land were also made to live in pathetic conditions. For instance, twenty-four men were forced to live in a tiny bunkhouse with only two toilets inside to share. There were severe plumbing issues in this bunkhouse, and there was constant dripping of water from the ceiling, making it a bacterial breeding ground. This film uses the format of "fiction" to explore the more profound truth and ultimately documents their resistance in the shipyard.
Photograph of the real Bunkhouse. Credit: HOUSTON CHRONICLE
This project is a thesis film for the M.F.A. program in Film & Media Production at The University of Texas at Austin. Our director Sachin has won the competitive UT Graduate Continuing Fellowship (an award given to support the final year of an outstanding graduate student) to implement his thesis project.
Director's Statement
Being an immigrant, I empathize with the Indian workers’ hopes and disappointments. When I first read about what had happened to the workers, I was heartbroken. Even if this incident occurred back in 2007, the labor exploitation of these guest-worker programs sadly continues even today. I believe that any human should live with a basic unit of dignity. And when this dignity is taken away, resistance should happen. Retaliation should happen. Voices should rise. The main themes of my film are "dignity" and "justice." This builds well from the previous installment of Kinostreet, “Testimony of Ana,” which also deals with the themes of dignity and justice. The fiction format allows me to maintain anonymity and tell their stories with more integrity. Instead of simply re-telling what has happened, we want to show what could have happened if the workers had decided to revolt and resist with a camcorder in our fictional world. I envision this project sparking a dialogue about immigrant rights and labor exploitation in the USA and worldwide.
Mood Boards
Lead Actor
Jesuthasan Antonythasan is a Sri Lankan Tamil author and actor known for Dheepan (2015), which won the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. He is a winner of the Best Actor Award at the International Cinephile Society (ICS) Cannes in 2015. In 2016, he was nominated for Best Actor at the prestigious César Awards in France. To play the lead in this film, we needed someone to empathize with the workers' exploitation. We are pleased to have secured the lead actor, Antonythasan Jesuthasan, a Sri Lankan civil war refugee residing in France. As a refugee, he has experienced similar real-life labor exploitation as the characters in MEN IN BLUE and hence naturally belonging to the film's world.
Timeline
Financial Breakdown
Your contribution is essential to bringing our film to life. So far, we have raised $13,500.00 for PRODUCTION, and we have raised $3,500.00 for POST-PRODUCTION.
Spread the Word
Please share our campaign via your social media, email, word-of-mouth; however, you want! We can't do this without YOU!
To make things easier, we put together some examples that you can copy and paste:
I'm so excited to see the short film MEN IN BLUE, by writer/director @sachindheeraj, be made this spring!!! Support them on @seedandspark: www.seedandspark.com/fund/men-in-blue
Help filmmaker @sachindheeraj by supporting his film MEN IN BLUE about the Indian immigrants conscripted and exploited as guest-workers to repair the damaged ships from Hurricane Katrina. Join them on @seedandspark: www.seedandspark.com/fund/men-in-blue
More Ways to Support
Follow us on Seed&Spark. 250 followers will give us access to perks, products, services, and festival waivers offered by Seed&Spark. 500 followers will get us even more!
Follow the journey of our production house KINOSTREET on Instagram @kinostreet_official and like us on Facebook at facebook.com/kinostreetofficial.
COVID-19 Protocol
The health and safety of our cast and crew are our top priority. The production will adhere to the following four safety practices: COVID-19 testing, social distancing, personal protective equipment (PPE), and disinfecting on set. We consider these new guidelines necessary to maintain the safety and health of our community and maintain a high level of production.
Thank you again for all your love and support. Together we can make this film possible and bring the change we want to see.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Set Construction Materials
Costs $4,500
Help build the home of our workers. This is where it all begins!
Set Construction Labor
Costs $4,500
The spine of our film. Hiring the crew to build our set.
Wardrobe & Makeup
Costs $3,000
Bringing our characters to life. We can secure their uniforms, Indian clothing and make up.
Locations
Costs $3,000
This is where our story takes place. Securing all our locations ranging from a shipyard to a bus.
Cast
Costs $4,000
They bring our story to life on screen. Securing all our cast and paying them appropriately.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
SACHIN DHEERAJ MUDIGONDA - DIRECTOR/WRITER/EDITOR
Sachin is an award-winning filmmaker who is currently studying and practicing film at The University of Texas at Austin as part of their MFA program in Film & Media Production. His work has been screened at prestigious film festivals such as Hot Docs, Raindance, EnergaCAMERIMAGE, and Krakow. He strives to tell stories that demand an urgent conversation and seeks to engage with people, places, and communities that are slowly disappearing. He aims to affirm their existence through cinema by preserving their lives and memories. His pre-thesis film, TESTIMONY OF ANA, won the Best Short Documentary Award at the Oscar-qualifying 13th International Documentary & Short Film Festival of Kerala. He is a recipient of the prestigious President's Award for Global Learning at UT Austin and the Austin Film Society Grant in 2020.
SEBASTIÁN VALDIVIESO JÁUREGUI - DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Sebastián Valdivieso is a director and cinematographer based in Austin, Texas, who is a current Masters of Production (MFA) student at the University of Texas at Austin. Sebastián was born in Ecuador. However, he spent his young adult life living in many places across Latin America, such as Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, where he completed his undergraduate degree in communication. Although he started his academic trajectory as a physicist, he soon realized that what he really loves is to tell stories that get to the heart of how people make hard decisions in their lives. He has written and directed two short films which combine aspects of magical realism with stories about a father and a daughter crossing the U.S. – Mexico border and of an aging Texan farmer who confronts mystery and loss in his life. Additionally, the film “Tierra,” which he helped co-write, won the 19th IMCINE National Short Film Project Competition for 2019 and is currently in post-production. He was the cinematographer for “Instructions for How to Let Go,” competed in the Voices Short section of the prestigious International Film Festival of Rotterdam (IFFR) in 2020.
JANANI VIJAYANATHAN - PRODUCER
Janani is an Indian classical dancer, software engineer, and independent film producer. She believes that art and technology have the power to change lives and that cinema in both fiction & non-fiction forms can raise questions, unlike any other medium. Her work as a producer has been shown at various prestigious film festivals worldwide, including Hot Docs, Raindance, EnergaCAMERIMAGE, SXSW, IDSFFK, and Krakow. In the future, she aspires to combine her software skills with cinematic experiences to produce meaningful work in alternate mediums such as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. She co-founded KINOSTREET, an independent production house based in Texas dedicated to creating films that document the sensibilities of the street. MEN IN BLUE is the second venture of KINOSTREET.
MARY-ELIZABETH ESQUIBEL - CO-PRODUCER
Mary-Elizabeth is a Texas-born writer/director and producer dedicated to resilient storytelling. She’s focused on expanding Black and Brown representation in front of and behind the lens. Mary-Elizabeth is currently pursuing an MFA in Film & Media Production at UT Austin. Her most recent short film, “biracial.” is featured at the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Memories for the Future series. The showcase highlights work from filmmakers across the globe focused on memory preservation in visual and sonic form.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
MEN IN BLUE is inspired by the actual events of Indian immigrants in coastal Texas. The film is constructed as a digital narrative to explore the effects of human trafficking and labor exploitation in the United States. It is set at an established shipyard populated with Indian labor immigrants who were conscripted as guest-workers to repair ships damaged after Hurricane Katrina in 2007. Stemming from our fieldwork among the immigrant workers, the film reimagines the events and tells a fictional story of what could have happened if the workers had a powerful weapon like a camcorder to document what is happening to them by recording their testimonies. These testimonies shown in the film through a camcorder are actual lines written by the real shipyard workers who were exploited. This is the truth we are bringing to our fiction.
Our main protagonist is VIJAYAN, a 54-year-old man. Other supporting characters are GEORGE and ALI. All these three men hail from different states in India. They speak different languages. They practice different religions, and they come from diverse backgrounds. Lured by the shipyard’s fraudulent promises of legal and permanent work-based immigration to the United States for themselves and their families, these men plunged their families into debt in India. Upon arriving in the USA, they realized that all their dreams were shattered, and they were subjected to inhumane treatment by the shipyard. These men who were unaware of their labor rights in this foreign land were also made to live in pathetic conditions. For instance, twenty-four men were forced to live in a tiny bunkhouse with only two toilets inside to share. There were severe plumbing issues in this bunkhouse, and there was constant dripping of water from the ceiling, making it a bacterial breeding ground. This film uses the format of "fiction" to explore the more profound truth and ultimately documents their resistance in the shipyard.
Photograph of the real Bunkhouse. Credit: HOUSTON CHRONICLE
This project is a thesis film for the M.F.A. program in Film & Media Production at The University of Texas at Austin. Our director Sachin has won the competitive UT Graduate Continuing Fellowship (an award given to support the final year of an outstanding graduate student) to implement his thesis project.
Director's Statement
Being an immigrant, I empathize with the Indian workers’ hopes and disappointments. When I first read about what had happened to the workers, I was heartbroken. Even if this incident occurred back in 2007, the labor exploitation of these guest-worker programs sadly continues even today. I believe that any human should live with a basic unit of dignity. And when this dignity is taken away, resistance should happen. Retaliation should happen. Voices should rise. The main themes of my film are "dignity" and "justice." This builds well from the previous installment of Kinostreet, “Testimony of Ana,” which also deals with the themes of dignity and justice. The fiction format allows me to maintain anonymity and tell their stories with more integrity. Instead of simply re-telling what has happened, we want to show what could have happened if the workers had decided to revolt and resist with a camcorder in our fictional world. I envision this project sparking a dialogue about immigrant rights and labor exploitation in the USA and worldwide.
Mood Boards
Lead Actor
Jesuthasan Antonythasan is a Sri Lankan Tamil author and actor known for Dheepan (2015), which won the Palme d'Or at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. He is a winner of the Best Actor Award at the International Cinephile Society (ICS) Cannes in 2015. In 2016, he was nominated for Best Actor at the prestigious César Awards in France. To play the lead in this film, we needed someone to empathize with the workers' exploitation. We are pleased to have secured the lead actor, Antonythasan Jesuthasan, a Sri Lankan civil war refugee residing in France. As a refugee, he has experienced similar real-life labor exploitation as the characters in MEN IN BLUE and hence naturally belonging to the film's world.
Timeline
Financial Breakdown
Your contribution is essential to bringing our film to life. So far, we have raised $13,500.00 for PRODUCTION, and we have raised $3,500.00 for POST-PRODUCTION.
Spread the Word
Please share our campaign via your social media, email, word-of-mouth; however, you want! We can't do this without YOU!
To make things easier, we put together some examples that you can copy and paste:
I'm so excited to see the short film MEN IN BLUE, by writer/director @sachindheeraj, be made this spring!!! Support them on @seedandspark: www.seedandspark.com/fund/men-in-blue
Help filmmaker @sachindheeraj by supporting his film MEN IN BLUE about the Indian immigrants conscripted and exploited as guest-workers to repair the damaged ships from Hurricane Katrina. Join them on @seedandspark: www.seedandspark.com/fund/men-in-blue
More Ways to Support
Follow us on Seed&Spark. 250 followers will give us access to perks, products, services, and festival waivers offered by Seed&Spark. 500 followers will get us even more!
Follow the journey of our production house KINOSTREET on Instagram @kinostreet_official and like us on Facebook at facebook.com/kinostreetofficial.
COVID-19 Protocol
The health and safety of our cast and crew are our top priority. The production will adhere to the following four safety practices: COVID-19 testing, social distancing, personal protective equipment (PPE), and disinfecting on set. We consider these new guidelines necessary to maintain the safety and health of our community and maintain a high level of production.
Thank you again for all your love and support. Together we can make this film possible and bring the change we want to see.
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Set Construction Materials
Costs $4,500
Help build the home of our workers. This is where it all begins!
Set Construction Labor
Costs $4,500
The spine of our film. Hiring the crew to build our set.
Wardrobe & Makeup
Costs $3,000
Bringing our characters to life. We can secure their uniforms, Indian clothing and make up.
Locations
Costs $3,000
This is where our story takes place. Securing all our locations ranging from a shipyard to a bus.
Cast
Costs $4,000
They bring our story to life on screen. Securing all our cast and paying them appropriately.
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
SACHIN DHEERAJ MUDIGONDA - DIRECTOR/WRITER/EDITOR
Sachin is an award-winning filmmaker who is currently studying and practicing film at The University of Texas at Austin as part of their MFA program in Film & Media Production. His work has been screened at prestigious film festivals such as Hot Docs, Raindance, EnergaCAMERIMAGE, and Krakow. He strives to tell stories that demand an urgent conversation and seeks to engage with people, places, and communities that are slowly disappearing. He aims to affirm their existence through cinema by preserving their lives and memories. His pre-thesis film, TESTIMONY OF ANA, won the Best Short Documentary Award at the Oscar-qualifying 13th International Documentary & Short Film Festival of Kerala. He is a recipient of the prestigious President's Award for Global Learning at UT Austin and the Austin Film Society Grant in 2020.
SEBASTIÁN VALDIVIESO JÁUREGUI - DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
Sebastián Valdivieso is a director and cinematographer based in Austin, Texas, who is a current Masters of Production (MFA) student at the University of Texas at Austin. Sebastián was born in Ecuador. However, he spent his young adult life living in many places across Latin America, such as Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, where he completed his undergraduate degree in communication. Although he started his academic trajectory as a physicist, he soon realized that what he really loves is to tell stories that get to the heart of how people make hard decisions in their lives. He has written and directed two short films which combine aspects of magical realism with stories about a father and a daughter crossing the U.S. – Mexico border and of an aging Texan farmer who confronts mystery and loss in his life. Additionally, the film “Tierra,” which he helped co-write, won the 19th IMCINE National Short Film Project Competition for 2019 and is currently in post-production. He was the cinematographer for “Instructions for How to Let Go,” competed in the Voices Short section of the prestigious International Film Festival of Rotterdam (IFFR) in 2020.
JANANI VIJAYANATHAN - PRODUCER
Janani is an Indian classical dancer, software engineer, and independent film producer. She believes that art and technology have the power to change lives and that cinema in both fiction & non-fiction forms can raise questions, unlike any other medium. Her work as a producer has been shown at various prestigious film festivals worldwide, including Hot Docs, Raindance, EnergaCAMERIMAGE, SXSW, IDSFFK, and Krakow. In the future, she aspires to combine her software skills with cinematic experiences to produce meaningful work in alternate mediums such as Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality. She co-founded KINOSTREET, an independent production house based in Texas dedicated to creating films that document the sensibilities of the street. MEN IN BLUE is the second venture of KINOSTREET.
MARY-ELIZABETH ESQUIBEL - CO-PRODUCER
Mary-Elizabeth is a Texas-born writer/director and producer dedicated to resilient storytelling. She’s focused on expanding Black and Brown representation in front of and behind the lens. Mary-Elizabeth is currently pursuing an MFA in Film & Media Production at UT Austin. Her most recent short film, “biracial.” is featured at the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Memories for the Future series. The showcase highlights work from filmmakers across the globe focused on memory preservation in visual and sonic form.