This is one of the teasers for a documentary film, “Ebb Tide.”

It was presented by Antidrama, the project’s creative producers, at the 2019 Berlinale and made the shortlist of the 2020 BIG PICTURE AWARDS.

The film is still in production, as the final stage of filming was halted by the global pandemic and delayed until epidemiological measures in India can be relaxed.

This is a story of the Agariya people, for whom salt mining during the ebb tide has been a way of life for five centuries.

One of the film’s central characters, Parnash was born in a year “when the rains were long”—and the tribe had no way to extract salt, surviving through a sheer miracle. Parnash is the eldest son in his family, caring for his younger brothers and sisters and laments that he has had to work till exhaustion since he was a mere child, 14 hours a day in the sun-scorched salt fields.

However, after seeing his father beaten for debts related to these lands, Parnash promised to do the impossible: escape this hell for the city!

His uncle once did the same, but since them, no-one has heard a word of him.

The boy believes that he can find the man in a famous “circle” in the city of Bhuj, and counts on finding himself work and shelter there as well. Just a month later, Parnash is on a ship laden with mangoes as it arrives in the port of Dubai. Is a new world waiting for him?