New Indian on the Hollywood block
Sharin Bhatti
Saturday, April 5, 2008
She
has been dubbed variously as 'the neo Mira Nair' and 'the finer Shekhar
Kapur.' Meet Shalini Kantayya, Hollywood's latest happening filmmaker
of Indian origin, who is ready with her first commercial release
"HI. It's fabulous to hear an Indian voice the first thing in the morning," Brooklyn-based Shalini Kantayya chirps at the other end of the line when we contact her from Mumbai. Well, fabulous things have been regularly happening to Shalini of late. The 30-year-old filmmaker, who first caught the attention of global TV audiences last year on NBC's talent hunt show, On the Lot, is now foraying Hollywood.
Her first commercial flick in Hollywood as director, a noir short named A Drop Of Life, is all set for release. When we catch her on the phone a week before the film's red carpet premiere in Los Angeles, Shalini is sipping early morning chai in her cold New York apartment.
A Drop Of Life takes a futuristic look at rural India without water, and among the film's ensemble cast is Indian actress Nandita Das. More than the film itself, Shalini is right now kicked about the impact it has created. In Hollywood, where women directors comprise a mere eight per cent population and where only two per cent people are from the Indian subcontinent, Kantayya has been hailed as the neo Mira Nair. Her film impressed Steven Spielberg, to begin with. Rush Hour director Brett Ratner calls her "the finer Shekhar Kapur." And when George Lucas saw her work, he instantly compared her cinematic idiom to "the mad and colourful brainwave of Guy Ritchie."
Shalini's definition of herself as a filmmaker is as mad as her cinema itself. "I am a tech-head, a tree-hugger and a humanist," she says. It's this mad streak that helped her garner instant attention on On The Lot, the show that spots potential filmmakers. On the show, she managed to make it to the final 10 stage from among thousands of aspirants, week after week giving Hollywood a taste of the cinema of the proud Indian immigrant. Bold, satirical, sensual and reflective, her one-week canned short movies on the show instantly impressed the judges with her sensibility.
Right now, Shalini is looking at space for inspiration. She has set up an independent film production house named 7th Empire Media Productions, and she wants it to be her Dreamworks Studio. "I will be making a fleet of science fiction movies for a production house. I want to come up with a line like George Lucas's ' May the force be with you' in Star Wars -- something that anyone anywhere on the planet can instantly recognise."
But there is little that one knows about this William D. Fulbright scholar in filmmaking. Among various felicitation that have marked her road to Hollywood, Shalini was awarded the Best Documentary award at the Asian American Film Festival in New York in 2006 for her movie on the Kumbh Mela, titled Manthan: The Churning. Her other critically acclaimed film, Bombay Longing, mirrors the life of a Butch woman in India's heaving financial capital.
One thing has been common in Shalini's works so far. They reflect the opinion that her On The Lot judges had of her during the show: she is a champion of human causes. Indeed, A Drop Of Life has set tongues wagging all across the US, given her research on water privatisation.
It all started as an act of rebellion for Shalini, though. "My parents moved to Connecticut way back in seventies when Jimmy Carter welcomed South Indian immigrants. Both my parents were doctors, and were assets to the United States. But I was a first-generation American-born Indian with my own ideas. When I announced that I wanted to be a filmmaker in my medical family, I was met with shock," recalls Shalini, who was a Human Rights Major in college.
After much haggling over parental resistance, which she wittily describes as "Bollywood drama," she was ready for film school. "I was already an installation artist by that time, so visuals naturally appealed to me. I moved to New York to study film," she says. Fine-tuning post production skills was all about editing music videos for Sting, Mariah Carey, and Phil Collins.
"I slogged during those years. I wanted to learn all I could on the job that I didn't learn in film school," she points out. The Fulbright scholarship gave Shalini the chance to make movies in Senegal, Mali, Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, Pakistan and India.
Shalini holds her Indian experience as her most special one. In 2002, she touched down with her roots and worked on what would be the pathbreaking movies of her career, all made in India. Manthan, Bombay Longing, and A Drop of Life were all conceptualised that summer. "I've learnt everything from India. The country is as much visually arresting as it is emotionally riveting. The issues that concern human life are so beautifully visible in the people here," Shalini says.
Apart from the rich portfolio that the stint helped her build, it helped Shalini score quite a few points on the personal front too. "My mom could never believe that I would travel alone to parts of India where even Indians think twice before going, but I did it. 'Such a bold girl,' she says today while proudly introducing me to her friends," laughs Shalini.
Her "lab rat parents" -- as she calls them -- were proudest, though, when they saw their daughter battling it out on prime time television in On The Lot. "Mom used to call up friends and say, 'my daughter is on TV!' Reality TV is about being tenacious. It made my parents realise that this is what I was always meant to do." The reception she got on On The Lot also gave Shalini the courage to release A Drop Of Life commercially.
"Everybody warned me that a movie on water privatisation in India would never work. I took my chance," she says of the film, starring Liza Jessie Peterson. Having released her film in cinemas across the US on World Water Day, March 22, Shalini plans to take it to the festival circuit now. She has had previous brushes with film festivals, of course, in Paris, London, New York, Chicago, Venice, Vancouver, Mexico City, Madrid and Mumbai. "In my creative pursuit, the fact that I have come of age between two countries -- the US and India -- is my source of inspiration," Shalini says.
Today, A Drop Of Life has already reached over 40 affected African communities through the African Water Network, besides 15 major universities in the US. And Shalini isn't giving up human causes yet. "Activism sells in today's global milieu. Voices have become critical to the survival of the planet. I want to reach new audiences in remote parts of the world where messages need to reach," she says.
For now, though, it's time for a science fiction blockbuster. One can picture Shalini already at work in her studio apartment, to come up with her wonky script. May the force be with her.
sharin.bhatti@mailtoday.in
Who's that girl?
- Shalini has interviewed personalities like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Gloria Steinem, rapper M1 of the underground hip-hop band Dead Prez, and R& B star Goapele
- Her new film, A Drop Of Life, has already won the Audience Choice Award at the Rain Bird Film Festival, besides awards for the Judges Choice, Best Editing and Best Production Design at CitiVisions
- Her commercial work includes editing videos for Sting, Mariah Carey and Phil Collins Shalini has lectured at colleges, universities, and international conferences, including keynotes at Arizona State University and Mount Holyoke College
- She has received the William D. Fulbright Fellowship to make a documentary film about political street theatre in India
Voicebox
SHALINI KANTAYYA opens up, first person
ON BOLLYWOOD: "It's colourful. But I'm more a fan of South Indian cinema than of Bollywood. Their songs and movies are simply intoxicating. I enjoy MG Ramachandran and Rajnikanth's films."
ON HER AMERICAN INDIAN IDENTITY: "It's fabulous. Being born in America I am extremely proud of calling myself a desi. We are a prouder bunch of Indians than India would have them."
ON HOLLYWOOD: "It's magical. Mainstream is fun. But it's not as challenging, exciting and democratic as it looks on the surface. When we talk filmmaking, we talk Hollywood because of the sheer size and grandeur with which they do things."
ON HER ON THE LOT EXPERIENCE:"It was mindblowing. There were sets, actors, equipment, coffee, costume, schedule, laptops and even loos on call."
ON INDIA: "It's stimulating. I had the craziest experiences in India. The craziest was when I was shooting for Manthan. I couldn't speak Hindi that well. And I was stranded in a tent with Naga babas around me. It was the most unforgettable image that my naked eye has ever captured."
ON HER FAVE MOVIES: "I like watching movies like The Constant Gardener and The Interpreter. They are great social movies that emotionally move you. These are the kind of progressive features I want to be associated with. The documentary world is still lightyears behind. But I like the way one can communicate through documented imagery even without a story."