Vimal Kumar is the son of a sweeper, or “untouchable” in India’s cruel caste system. This film profiles his efforts to provide different options and more hope for other children of sweepers through education. We follow him around India as he manages his “Movement for Scavenger Community” and observe his challenges... and his success.

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"Son of a Sweeper" is Lisa Mills' 15th documentary. Her documentary films have won national and international awards and screened in film festivals all over the world.

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Director's statement on the film:

My creative research centers on the lingering discrimination faced by India’s lowest caste “scavengers,” who have been left behind during India’s technological growth and global expansion. My methodology is the production of an observational documentary film about a social activist born into the scavenger caste. Vimal Kumar’s goal is to improve the economic future for scavenger children through the establishment of community-based education resource centers in migrant communities.

 

I was invited into these communities by Mr. Kumar and thus inserted myself as an American outsider. As I interacted with my subject in his community, this physical “place within a place” became a small, interpretive world in which I made aesthetic filmmaking choices. My selection of images and sounds created a narrative around Kumar’s activism that became a personal expression of my presence, grounded in both physical place and social concern. India presents a devastating paradox where class struggle remains embedded in cultural and religious beliefs. Its educational and social infrastructure does not provide equal opportunity for migrants who become “ungrounded” when they leave their home state. Sweepers, garbage collectors, and sewer cleaners raise families in slums established several generations ago, but many are newcomers, migrating from rural areas where they faced caste violence from land-owning farmers.

 

As an artist, I seek to document the scavengers’ efforts to “reground” within their own communities in order to seek a better life for their children. They are the untouchables, “the unseen,” yet they see themselves with an unconventional hope that rubs up against India’s cultural divide. Through my practice I utilize a subjective lens that magnifies Mr. Kumar’s struggles to help himself and his community be seen. My creative research takes shape as documentary film, and in the process explores how my “outsider” interpretation affects the representation of my subject’s social movement.