BOLDtalks's video: The Story of the Mango Girls - Robert Carr Kunal Sharma - BOLDtalks Woman 2014

The practice of dowry is very common in India where an exorbitant amount of money and wealth is demanded by the groom's parents. The anxiety of this financial loss has given rise to the fear of having a girl child. Parents and grandparents together conspire to kill the infant girl or before she is born. Although the Indian Law has passed an act against pre-natal gender detection there are corrupted doctors and families who do not follow the law. The Dharhara village has found the solution by planting ten trees when the girl child is born. The money earned from selling the mangoes of these trees are spent for the wedding of the girl child. Thus this villagers have overcome the fear of dowry spending and there is no stigma attached to a daughter born in the family. Robert Carr and Kunal Sharma, the directors of the documentary "Mango Girls" co-share thier talk on the film's effort in bringing an awareness on how a small village has got solution to the age old issue of girl child infanticide / feticide in India. Robert Carr is a graduate of Fine Arts from the University of Oregon, Robert Carr has had a long and diverse career in the media arts. His first job found him in San Francisco where he owned and operated Contact Printing Co. and started work producing his first film entitled "Cycle Queens." Over the next four decades, Carr intertwined travels in Europe and Asia with various multimedia employments along the American West coast. His track record includes owning and producing Retina Circus TV Productions, production management for Kemo TV, and film production for Invision and U.G. Krishnamurti. Most prominently, Carr worked creatively for Warner Bros. making music videos and in-house promotions for television. Since 2002, Carr has settled in Mumbai, India, where he works as a consultant and creative director for Visi Films. He is a crucial team member for esteemed Bollywood producer Mahesh Bhatt. He is the co-producer for up-and-coming film "Mango Girls," a documentary on women in India. Kunal Sharma is a dynamic, multi-talented budding filmmaker. Coming from a freelance media background, working with short films and PSAs, Sharma started his own media company Mandar Productions Pvt. Ltd. in 2007. Mandar manages everything from film distribution, to book publication, to event organization. Sharma had his first taste of documentary filmmaking when he co-produced a feature-length film called "U.G. Krishnamurti." Now the man has evolved into the visionary for the up-and-coming documentary "Mango Girls," which he has designed, organized, co-produced, and directed. Sharma has plans a new film project, also on women's right and sexual violence all over the world.