Shaison Ouseph on his debut feature film, ‘The Face of the Faceless’, on the life of Sister Rani Maria, who was beatified

hindi movie face of the faceless by shaison ouseph is about sister rani maria who was murdered for her work in tribal community

For Sister Rani Maria, a nun from Kerala, her posting at Udainagar, 58 kilometres from Indore, Madhya Pradesh, was another destination to help indigent tribes in the area. Her work with tribal communities in Bijnor, Uttar Pradesh and Satna, Madhya Pradesh, had helped her gain an understanding of the myriad problems of the downtrodden.

Realising that the tribal community was exploited by rapacious moneylenders in the area, she tried to empower the tribals by giving them information on government subsidies and loans, which would free them from the grip of the moneylenders. In the process, she antagonised some of the them who felt threatened by her work.  During the five years she worked in Indore, Sister Rani Maria, an activist and social reformer, created self-help groups so that they could avail of government loans and subsidies. She helped the tribals to farm their lands. Thus the landlords were unable to get cheap labour for their farms. She also sought legal help to stop the exploitation by the zamindars.

On February 25, 1995, 41-year-old Rani Maria had to pay with her life as a local farmer murdered her on the behest of those she had angered.

Pulluvazhiyil Ninnum Punnyavazhiyilek (From Pulluvazhi to the Path of Holiness), a book by Aerthayil Babychen, traces the life of Rani Maria, from her birth in a village at Pulluvazhi, in Ernakulam district in Kerala to her death. He writes about her work among the downtrodden and how the nun’s family had forgiven the killer, Samundar Singh. Sister Rani Maria was beatified at Indore in 2017.

The book caught the attention of Dr. Shaison P Ouseph, Associate Dean (technical and administration) and head of the department of Film, Television and Digital Video Production at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai.

Shaison discovered there was a lot of content in the book “about her life and her extraordinary work among the marginalised. It was her mother’s and sister’s act of forgiveness that I wanted to highlight. They met the killer and gave him their forgiveness. Forgiveness is a crucial component in anyone’s journey towards healing. This act was an important aspect of her life. I began writing the story from that angle and that is the essence of the movie.”

Finding a producer proved to be extremely difficult. Shaison says he was disappointed that even the church did not come to his rescue. “I approached the church and many other people. When they heard it was about a nun, they were not willing to finance it,” says Shaison.