Logline
Tapashi returns to her countryside home to live a self-determined life after her higher education, but her family has already decided her destiny, from which no escape is possible!
Synopsis
Tapashi returns to her countryside home to live a self-determined life after her higher education, but her family has already decided her destiny, from which no escape is possible!
Synopsis Long
With lots of dreams, Tapashi comes back home to the countryside after completing her university education. She tries her best to settle in. But it’s all so different in the countryside. Tapashi starts to see the facts of the hard rural life and its harsh realities. The unemployment, loss of communication, lack of urbanisation facilities, less freedom and peoples different behaviour. Whenever she looks at her poor father and unemployed brother she doesn't want to end like them. Instead, she wants to do something on her own, for her and her family. And Tapashi tries out different possibilities. She tries hard. It is a fight. Just nothing works out. And slowly her parents get uneasy with the situation. Only see one possibility for Tapashi. Arrange a marriage. Against her will. Force her to sacrifice her dreams. And accept realities as they are. And Tapashi gives in. Just is there a possibility to live her hopes, keep her dignity?
Storyline
Story is based in India today in a typical rural community. Tapashi, the principal character, returns to her home after having completed her university studies. And her life will be different. Living again with her parents and her brother in one house under one roof on the countryside. Although Tapashi got a good education in the city, on the countryside her options are limited. Not finding a job she helps her father and mother with working on the fields and in the house. Tries also additional exams to achieve her ultimate goal. To live a self determined life. On her own. And then there is her boyfriend. Who is still in the city. And shows little understanding for the constraints of her new situation. When he gets the chance to continue his studies abroad the young couple split. Now Tapashi is all alone. Wants to run away. As she doesn’t want to end like a fish in a pond. Also her brother is not of a help. As he is a drug addict and drunken whenever possible. When Tapashi’s mother comes up with idea to marry someone from the village Tapashi protests. Resists. Continues to fight for her idea of a free life. Searches for opportunities. Work. As long as she can. Then mother comes again with a more concrete proposal. And Tapashi doesn‘t know what to do anymore. And gives in. As she tried everything. Film ends with the marriage. Tapashi’s new husband is a person she has never met before. And for whom she doesn’t feel anything. Now she is sharing the fate of hundred thousands of young women in today’s India. Just is Tapashi really defeated? Or is there an energy, an outlook that will help her to master her life and keep her identity? In an India that has to change.
Director's Statement
Lack of gender equality is a massive thing. A worldwide injustice. And the main theme and underlying leitmotif of my movie END OF SPRING.
Like lots of other young Indian women today, my main character Tapashi is facing a world that doesn’t offer possibilities and opportunities for a self defined life, even when Tapashi comes with a good higher education from the city to live with their parents in the countryside.
As myself also living in the countryside I have seen arriving all these young women from the other places trying to cope with a similar situation. And this touched me. And started my desire to tell their story. And see whether there might be the chance for someone like Tapashi to keep a rest of dignity and autonomy or leave it all to the power of the realities and economic constraints.
So for me this story matters. Tapashi matters. As there are many Tapashis in India and around the world.