DESCRIPTION/
Every day in India, another 55,000 children start smoking -- compared to the 3,000 children who take up the habit in the US, where numbers are falling. Tobacco is one of India's favorite pastimes: Indians spit it, chew it, smoke it, roll it everywhere, throughout the continent. And, inspired by advertising for Wills cigarettes which sponsors the Indian cricket team, children believe that smoking improves cricketing techniques. Hardly surprising, then, that with declining markets in the West, and 50% of India's population under the age of 25, the major tobacco companies are increasingly targeting India as their new growth market. Film INDIA INHALES explores the cynicism of the major global tobacco companies' campaigns in India, and the work of the activists who have pledged to try to stop them -- and halt the soaring increase in cancer cases in India that result from smoking.

BIOGRAPHY/
Amanda Rudman produced over 40 music videos and commercials in the early 1990s. Her clients ranged from Mercedes, Sony, Boy George, Enya and Simply Red. She went on to complete her post-graduate work in documentary directing at the National Film and Television School in the U.K. Amanda was awarded the Gold Plaque at the 1996 Chicago International Film Festival for her film, ZANNA, about a fashion photographer and music video director facing important mid-life questions. She received numerous prizes for TOXIC PIZZA, her work on the hazards of the steel industry in Southern Ukraine. She received First Prize from the Crystal Heart 1998 International Film and TV Festival in the Czech Republic, Best Film by Youngest/Woman Film Maker from the 1998 Nature International Film Festival in India, Best Film on Environmentally Sustainable Business and Industry at the 1998 Towards a Sustainable Planet Film Festival in India, and was Winner at the 3rd International Environmental Film Festival in South Africa in 1997. Amanda directed and filmed for the BBC a pilot of Earth Report (1997), on Somalia¹s environmental and civil war struggles. She has remained fascinated with sports, covering bob-sled racing and stock car racing, but has also been persistent at uncovering emotional themes surrounding mental illness, gender issues, and bereavement counseling.


CONTACT/
John Hoskyns-Abrahall
Bullfrog Films
P.O. Box 149
Oley, PA 19547
E-mail: john@bullfrogfilms.com
URL: www.bullfrogfilms.com