Mrittika ‘Mou’ Sarin, Director, Writer 

Sloan Grant(s) Received: 2023, Athena Film Festival, Development Award

Project Type: Feature 

Genre: Climate Thriller

Length: 105 pages 

Field of Science: Technology

Stage: Pre-Production

Synopsis: 

SCARCE is a compelling social drama set in Mumbai, a city teetering on the edge of a water crisis. The film opens with a stark reminder: India holds 18% of the world’s population but only 4% of its water resources. The story is a personal yet sweeping tale about systemic failure and inter-generational conflict.

The protagonist, Saras, is a 40-something hardworking clerk at the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), navigating the bureaucratic chaos of India’s municipal water system. Practical and tough, she manages her modest household with her husband Dheeraj and teenage son Rounak, a sensitive, idealistic Gen-Z student who spends his free time as a volunteer mural artist in the slums.

Rounak’s best friend Surya, lives in the slums, is grappling with a growing crisis: the water supply has been missing for two weeks. Rounak pressures Saras to push the department to look into the issue. Though initially dismissive, Saras begins to take the issue personally, especially as she observes the callousness of her superiors like Gopal, who dissuade her from escalating the complaint.

Rounak and Surya, frustrated by inaction, take matters into their own hands. They confront and eventually steal a water mafia truck to distribute free water to their community. This act has severe consequences: the water mafia is now at war with the slums and refuse to sell them any more water. Surya’s mother is forced to boil dirty water and eventually falls critically ill from it. Meanwhile, Rounak is suspended from school. Saras, torn between maternal fear and professional duty, forbids Rounak from continuing his activism—driving a deeper wedge between them.

Saras’s transformation begins when she defies her orders and visits the slum herself. There, she meets Shekhar, a reformed gangster-turned-community leader, and starts suspecting foul play. When she hacks into government data with the help of her tech-savvy tutor Meera, she discovers an anomaly: an impossible 124 million gallons of water have supposedly been routed to the slum in a single day – far above the actual demand.

Her investigation leads her to a water treatment plant, where she impersonates an engineer and secretly accesses GIS data. However, when this trail runs cold, she is forced to follow a mafia-run tanker to a hidden compound where she believes large scale siphoning is occurring. She is caught and the mafia leader, Viraj, dismisses Saras but warns her to stay quiet—hinting at powerful political players behind the operation.

Saras begins to connect the dots between systemic corruption, data mismanagement, and water theft. She discovers that a politician, Urmila Devi, who campaigned on improving water access, is possibly in league with the mafia – using them to suppress the slums or benefit elite development interests.

As public health collapses—Cholera and jaundice cases spike – Saras realizes the gravity of the situation. At the hospital, Rounak finds Surya’s mother critically ill. Meanwhile, the mafia begins to retaliate: Saras is tailed, and Rounak’s safety is compromised.

With the mafia closing in, a protest ready to erupt into violence, and an entire community facing extinction; Saras rushes to find the perpetrators and the stolen goods. Saras must protect her son, confront her corrupt superiors, and make a stand for the forgotten citizens of Mumbai.

SCARCE is a grounded, emotionally resonant film that explores the intersection of climate crisis, bureaucracy, activism, and generational divides. It shows how individual courage – especially from the most overlooked corners of the system – can ripple outward to challenge entrenched power. It is a story of transformation: of a clerk into a whistleblower, of a son into an activist, and a city forced to face the consequences of its inequality.