Oxfam has today released a ‘landmark’ (says The Guardian) online interactive documentary which captures the moment when Cyclone Aila hit Bangladesh in May 2009. The film’s Director here discusses making the film.

We weren’t prepared for what was going to hit us.

In May, we had travelled to Bangadesh to make an interactive documentary - ‘Gabura’, where the audience could explore life on a small Bangladeshi island and witness the ravaging impacts of climate change there.

We were about half-way through the shoot and had filmed some strange and disturbing stories about what climate change was doing to the place and the people.

Locals were reporting an increase in tiger attacks, young girls were afflicted by mysterious rashes from the increasingly salty water. The shrimp business appeared to be the only thing thriving.

But suddenly Cyclone Aila hit. Our brilliant and brave Oxfam partner, Mohan Kumar Mondal shot extraordinary footage as the cyclone swept mercilessly across the village.

As we drove into the tail end of the storm, trees were falling on the road and the rain was lashing away visibility.

Later, as the rain started to ease and the first bodies were pulled out of the water, we saw Gabura had become unrecognisable. It was hideously transformed.

We met a father searching for his baby girl, washed out of his lap during the cyclone. “I couldn’t hold her,” he told me, crying in despair. We saw first hand the terrible devastation the cyclone had wreaked.

It is always a struggle to find a new and innovative ways to tell stories on serious international subjects.

Television’s interest in such matters can be limited to say the least, and so all eyes turn to the web.

There is a sense of opportunity, not only about reaching new audiences, of distributing differently but about making a new type of documentary and telling stories in a different way.

The documentary “Gabura - Daily Life and Disaster” aims to do just that. Regardless, the experience of making Gabura will stay with me for a very long time.

Watch “Gabura - Daily Life and Disaster”

Tags: 'Here & Now' climate change campaign, Bangladesh, climate change, cyclone aila, cycloneaila

This entry was posted by Sandhya Suri on November 9th, 2009 at 10:19 am and is filed under 'Here & Now' climate change campaign, Campaigns, Campaigns Blog, Campaigns News, Climate change, General, Humanitarian, News Blog, You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.