How dancer Lourd Vijay is paying it forward

Bengaluru-based dancer Lourd Vijay talks about Anicca, a documentary on his drive to boost awareness on organ donation

After battling a kidney condition for years, Lourd Vijay successfully underwent a kidney transplant six years ago. “I received a transplant at the state-run registry and during my isolation in the hospital for 11 days, I realised I wanted to do something in this whole space of organ donation.”

“After discussing this with the director of Manipal Hospital and a few others, we realised a national drive would be a good way to engage with people and spread awareness. So we embarked on a drive from Chennai to Ladakh, stopping at colleges, schools and other venues organised by the Rotary Club, over a period of 37 days.”

Lourd says while he spoke about his experience with the disease and dialysis, the meetings themselves became a site for screenings, tests and medical checks for participants. “I wanted to document this experience and asked Raju Hittalamani, a documentary filmmaker who focuses on social causes and concerns, for his help in this project. It was his idea to turn it into a film and that is how Anicca: Living Beyond Body came to be.”

Anicca which means impermanence in Pali, took about a year and a half to make and is about 48 minutes long. After getting noticed at the Indian World Film Festival, TFM and other film festivals, will be globally released online by actor Revathi on November 3.

The goal behind this documentary is to disseminate information on organ donation and spur more people to sign up to become donors, says Lourd. “Regionally, a few states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are at the forefront of the whole idea, but other states are still lagging behind. It is in the interest of the country to get every state to align, make people aware and get government infrastructure and mechanisms in place to manage resources.”

As morbid as it sounds, if more accident victims were donors it could go a long way in helping the demand for organs — modern laws in Spain and certain parts of the United States have made it mandatory for people to be organ donors. While Lourd understands that films revolving around social causes only have a very small audience, “We’re hoping that a small audience will make a small change and become organ donors.”

Produced by Kabes Media and Spreading Hope Foundation and supported by the Rotary club for Organ Donation, Anicca will be released online globally on November 3, 8.30pm IST (4pm London time) via zoom and is open to all.