Nina SR

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_________________________________________________________________________________________________Excavating Indian Experimental Film Research Fellowship 2005 Shai Heredia

C o p y r I g h t © 2 0 0 5 F I l t e r I n d I a

NINA SHIVDASANI ROVSHENIn 1975 Nina Shivdasani Rovshen (aka Nina Sugati SR), made ‘Chhatrabhang’ – the first Indianfilm to win the International Fipresci critics award. This 80 min 35mm colour film was shot by AKBir over a period of 30 days, and edited over period of a year by the filmmaker herself. The filmwas made within Rs 2 lakhs and has rarely been screened in India.

FILMOGRAPHY1. ‘Breaking Ground’2. ‘A world of all intelligence’3. ‘Chattrabhang’

With a simple narrative that unravels in a direct yet poetic manner, ‘Chhatrabhang’ explores thecaste dynamics of a drought stricken village in rural India. From a purely metaphysicalexplanation of human affliction, to an analysis of social and economic conditions in India, thisfilm is essentially about dilemma and the processes involved in resolve, change and reform.Filmed entirely with a cast of real villagers, this bold film has an inherently disarming artistic andhuman integrity. The First Indian film to win the International Fipresci critics award (1976),‘Chhatrabhang’ still remains a true innovation in cinematic language.

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NINA SHIVDASANI ROVSHEN IN CONVERSATION WITH SHAI HEREDIA (JUNE 2005)

SHAI: Can you elaborate on when and how you got interested with film?NINA: I did my undergrad in art, in painting and in photography, an honours program because I alwayshad the feeling that you should have some content also, when you work in art, not just art aesthetics.There must be something that moves you in society that causes you to create. I was very disturbed bythe Bangladesh war and after reading about it extensively in newspapers and magazines, I createdthis painting on it. And 2-3 months later when I looked at it, I realised it did not bring out what I feltabout the war. That whole Bangladesh episode in history, this painting that I put all my heart and soulinto did not bring out the conceptual understanding that I had gathered from my reading and from myunderstanding of that incident. I realized that I relate to the painting medium in a more non-figurative

manner and not really with content and I finally realised that the best medium to express the conceptsthat were becoming important to me was visual, words, characters and people, and that's whatmotivated me to study film.In 1970-1971 I went to Calarts arts for masters’ degree in film and video production and direction. Ihad a full scholarship there, so I had no money problems, the infrastructure was amazing for graduateschool. So that gave me the skills and the ability to handle concepts that were getting more in depthand more complex. Non-figurative abstract works could never replace film for me. So it was like 2sides of the same coin and 2 dimensions of the same person. Now I sort of realise that the 2 are interrelated, all my understanding of space composition, colours, how to use them effectively to bringacross an idea, or relationship, I learnt in terms of the painting space has all come into my film work.And my films would not be what they were without that initial training that I had in the paintingprofession.

SHAI: What were the first films that you made?NINA: When I went to LA, I had done a lot of photography before I went into film and I was part ofvision exchange workshop with Akbar Padamsee. He had gotten a Nehru fellowship, and he started adarkroom and a vision exchange between artists and he invited me for that workshop. And I printed inhis dark room, and we talked and talked. He opened it out to other people. Mani Kaul was also there. Ican’t remember who the others were…

My initial experience of imageography began even actually before that because the first photograph Itook of myself when I was 12 years old was an imageograph of what I thought was my spirit. I didn’t

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know or understand what I had done. In America, in the school of visual arts I picked a black girl fromthe street. There was a balloon guy, to whom she said she wanted a white balloon. She held the whiteballoon to her face and I still have that image. I realised that the young girl had a complex about beingblack. That's why she chose the white balloon so dramatically, so emphatically and immediately. Itwas completely transparently apparent. Then I realised the conceptual worth of visuals. Because thereare so many interpretations within an image, whereas with words it becomes all linear and specific. Soto communicate words maybe very good but to enlarge somebody’s imagination and to make peoplesee something that you see and you want them to see, some vision of yours that you want to sharewith someone, only a visual can do that. Primarily because that incorporates the working of their mindsas well, whereas in words it is literal. Even though we have 30 words with different nuances, so but ifyou pick the right word it is the same thing mathematically to the person who’s listening and theperson who’s talking. If you are vague about the word you pick…first comes math in its accuracy andthen comes the linear word. Visuals are limitless and when I realised that, that I think was the seed ofimageography. Not the word, not the defining of that experience but the seed, thought of thatconceptual realization through a visual.

SHAI: Can you to talk a little about the films that you made at that time, which came out of thisrealization?NINA: One thing about Calarts is that they accept students who are already ready with what they wantto say in life. You don’t go there as a student. You are working with professionals, they are allpracticing artists. So we were considered professionals from day one. Also they take people who areready to go in straight with their camera. I had done super-8 films before that. My earliest works werein super 8.Then a month after we entered, they said take the cameras and go film whatever you want.And I was not ready after one month. I think my working space is slower because I like to relish it,understand it, analyse it; I like to relish everything that I create not while I’m creating. While I'mcreating I don’t think at all, it is very intuitive but that intuition has been formed over the years andexperience so I’ve learnt to rely on that. So six weeks into the course I went to…and I said I probablywont even get a camera because all the students would’ve taken the camera. But they had 1½camera per person… I mean it was like a paradise of cameras. I went and I asked is there anyequipment left and the guy said yeah, plenty, choose. So the first camera that I used was an éclairNPR, on my shoulder, hand held and of course I had to have one day to just be happy with it withoutshooting anything and I used it to make ‘Breaking Ground’. I used all 3-4 cameras because every timeyou didn’t get the same cameras so I used about 4 cameras. And I also made another film called ‘A

World Of All Intelligence’ that is a five-layer film. 2 layers on camera, 1 on the oxberry optical printer,,one of my paintings, and one of animation.

SHAI: Do you still have these?NINA: I have everything on digi-beta and I have everything on Beta, I'm planning to put it on DVD.There were 3 films that I made there. You are always learning, you are always discovering and I makea differentiation between discovering and experimenting because I know you r so involved into thewhole experimental approach I applaud you for that because I think unless you experiment you can’tdiscover. And discovering was my emphasis, I wanted to discover, I wanted to find out the heartbeat ofanything I did. I must get at the heartbeat, the pulse of the whole thing. Imageography is related tothat; it’s related to the essence.

SHAI: So what do you feel were the new film forms you were creating when you were there?

What was the inspiration - was it documentary, visual art, cinema that you had seen? I ask thissimply because, at the end of the day your context was an Indian context but you were makingthese films in America. So what would you say you brought to Calarts from your own Indiancontext…how did that develop…NINA: I can confidently say that my whole process of observation and curiosity about my environmentbegan in India. I still remember during my schools days going to the bus stop as I waited for the bus togo to school, I used to observe in heavy detail the milkman, the bhel puri wala, inter relationshipbetween the 2, the conversation at the bus stop and there’s so much variety in our Indian visualenvironment that I think the artist in me developed because there’s so much happening here in every

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minute of the day in every inch of space. That is probably what got me going on this whole thing. Butat that time I didnt have the camera I just had my head to make the films. And I’d been making films inmy head since school. I go back to where I grew up and I see the same people sitting in the samecorners the bhel puri wala still in the corner next to the chana walah, and you know, they haven’tmoved. And maybe the channa was 25 paisa and now it’s Rs 2, but the same people are there. Toobserve and to understand began here and then it was just a matter of translating that into a creativemedium. So when I went to America, I just went exploring and looking for characters that interestedme. And I saw this 9yr old black girl and she was walking in a way that I could tell that there was a lackof vitamin D in her leg… but there was something in the look in her eyes or her way…and I followedher. Every character in my film has been found, not gone out looking for. I haven’t gone out looking foranything. I’ve gone out and found people that have interested me for some undefinable reason I don’teven analyse when I decide. And then I talk to them and ask them can I make a film on you andthey’ve all agreed.

I feel that with everyday I learn more and I get more experience and with that addition I go out into theenvironment again. Each time I go out I find something else interesting since I'm on a different levelsince there has been growth within me. So I found this girl, I went to her house and made friends withher family and then the imageography part in me started working in what is the concept ofinterrelationship between this girl and her family. I realised in one second that it was chaos, it was alow-income black family and there was chaos inside the house. And this girl was quiet; she was

probably absorbing all the sounds and what was happening and she used to go to this place whereshe used to sit quietly to sort out things in her head. So I told her I’ll go with you there and that's in thefilm. Her thoughts, and what she thinks about and at the end I realised that she, 9 year old wanted togo away and make a foundation for herself, she couldn’t make that foundation within the housebecause there were so many people staying there. You know how the blacks are a talkative kind ofpeople and they have lot of soul…in the last line of the film, she’s at the top of a hill, she’s lookingdown and she sees trees, she says, there are trees down there so there must be a ground downthere…and that's why the film is called breaking ground because its her trying to make foundation. Soher logic, saying that I can’t see the trunk, and I can’t see the earth, and I can’t see the ground but if Ican see the tops of the trees then below that there must be a ground. And a nine-year-old girl’s logicwas fascinating for me. The other film, was also characters I saw looking into a window shop whowere giggling and laughing. I found they related to each other in a very sensitive manner. So I followedthem and made a film on 2 of them and 2 others. They all lived in the same sort of community kind of

place. And ‘World Of All Intelligence’ I made along with another guy. We found this guy on a beachand he was talking to someone and I overheard the conversation and he was explaining to the guythat we live in a world of all intelligence and as soon as I heard that I said oh this sounds interesting.So he explained that nobody can do the work for you, if you want to play the violin, nobody can playthe violin for you, you have to play the violin yourself. So it is on that philosophy we made a film onhim.

SHAI: Which filmmakers’ work has been inspirational to you – both while you were inUniversity and now?NINA: I took a course in the history of films where they showed a lot of films. And back then when Iused to sit on the last row of the classroom, I used to hear people saying oh I want to make a film likeAlfred Hitchcock, and I want to make a film like Godard and I remember thinking that I don’t want tomake a film like any of these people, I want to make a film that comes from within me…so I used to sit

far away. And there was another girl who I was close to there, she used to sit in the first row and weused to talk about this and she used to say I want to be totally enveloped and grabbed by the film andI used to say, if that happens I’ll lose touch with what I’m trying to create, I need to be detached and atthe back so that I can analyse and learn in an intellectual manner, skills and methods and approachesof other directors and then find which ones fit, what I like to do or don’t want to do or, and I alwaysused to say you learn from a bad film more than a good film. Because you know that I will never dothat. Like I know I never want to make a bollywood film, I'm 100% sure of that, but I always say I domy experimentation before I begin the production. I do a lot of tests. Suppose I'm making on 16mm or35mm, I do my experiments on digital, and then when I do the work, more innovation goes into the

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main work.

SHAI: Experiment is a word that I have also broken down, it is a word that you use initially toget away from inaccessible words like Avant garde. The festival I curate - Experimenta is aboucleberating the creation of a new syntax. For me I think sci-fi films or B grade films that createa new syntax can also be ‘experimental’.

NINA: I think that is more appealing to me, a new syntax …

SHAI: You did create a new syntax and its that kind of work that I’m looking at to celebrate…NINA: It is okay for people who know what you are saying, but people who don’t know will wronglyunderstand and will not interpret the way you are saying it. How about using the word innovative?Because I’ll tell you what I have discovered between the approaches creative, innovative, discoveringand experimental. They mean different things. Discovering is a process within the person, after youdiscover then you create something but all creativity is not innovation. Everybody in this world cancreate, every single person has a creative gene in them. But that doesn’t mean what they create isinnovative. Innovative is what leads to new syntax, new genres, new ways of perceiving reality, that isthe challenge for me. And that's why I don’t want to do quantity works. You know, I was the firstabstract miniaturist in the 60’s I did my first, even earlier, I formalized it and all…it was called thecontemporary abstract miniature as opposed to the pahadi, rajashtani, moghul miniatures, all thoseminiatures in the 17

th century. Then for a whole century and a half nobody did miniatures. And one day

I was sitting on my carpet in LA, taking a break from films and painting and I realised that the miniaturethat I learnt so much about in India before going to the US, I want to abstract it. I want to create aphysics between colour and shape and space… I did a lot of these miniatures, non-figurative abstractcontemporary miniatures. Even that was a new genre, a new form in art. Every film of mine, if you see‘Breaking Ground’, I did the camera. Obviously if I wanted to create a new visual language I had to docamera myself because you can’t tell the cameraperson the little details of movement, when to dowhat and all…

I sent my short films to film festivals where they won awards - in Washington, Chicago andeverywhere. My films went and came back, and the fiber case has all the stamps and where it hasbeen and all that, I have saved all of them. They called it poetic analyses.

SHAI: So what did you then decide to do with your filmmaking aspirations on your return to

India…NINA: When I got back to India, I organized a show of my films and invited my artist friends andpeople in the film world. A friend of mine was in the audience and she liked my work and we gottalking and she said that she had a foundation that would sponsor my film if I do it in the rural areasbecause they wanted to encourage projects in the rural areas, and there had, never been a film madethere. I said I want to make a film. And so, then I did a lot of reading. You know, when I got back, Irealised that if I want to make a film on the essence of India - I’ve always been interested in theessence as I said earlier. 70% of Indians live in the rural area, so I had to make a film on that. Andthen I thought of a trilogy idea, I’ll make one on a small town and then on the urban area where thetechnological era would also come in. But I didn’t do the other films, I would want to do those two butthat was the beginning thoughts on film making that I had here.

What happened was I started doing a lot of reading and I read about this incident, it was about 3 lines

in the newspaper that said that a well had run dry in northern India and what had occurred after that. Iimmediately circled it. I remember realising that I could make that the seed of the film, that real true-lifeincident. And combine it with as much of the reality of that incident along with a certain amount offiction to supplement where it needed it. So that it turned out into a really strong work. ‘Chhatrabhang’is actually, initially inspired by the fact that it had to be a rural film because 70% of India is there,secondly that its based on a true life incident and at that time people were not working in this way. Iknow for a fact that I'm the first person to have worked in this approach.

SHAI: But that time Shyam Benegal and others were developing the whole parallel cinema

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movement too …NINA: Yes I think, he was there then, but when I came back I hadn’t seen any new wave films, no FFCfilms. I went straight into making this film which I did within 3 months of coming back. I think Mani Kaul,Shyam Benegal, Kumar Shahani, all these people the first films of the new wave cinema washappening at the same time that ‘Chhatrabhang’ was happening. Maybe when editing I might haveseen because as soon as I came back I went on my research trip then again went for filming. (SHAI:You were not connected with the industry in any way?) No way at all, except that I knew ManiKaul from the vision exchange workshop days where we used to sit and talk and conceptualise. I didn’thave any influences of Indian films in my work and even foreign films you asked me earlier, as I said Isat at the back and look at things in a detached way because I knew I had to do that.

SHAI: But there has to be some filmmaker who whose work you found inspirational…like whodo you admire for example?NINA: I liked the neo-realist cinema. I mean I had tremendous admiration for Satyajit Ray in particularbecause I said how did he make 20 films in India, in the infrastructure that's Calcutta. That is evenworse than Mumbai, Mumbai’s not bad but in Calcutta I know the infrastructure is not as good as inMumbai. And I had admiration for a man who could make so many films and all good quality ones. Allthat I’d want to see. So from that angle I admired him. His kind of realism sprung from literature, frombooks he would write screenplays and from already written works. Mine didn’t spring from literaturemine sprang from the visuals. My story came from photographs I took from conversations on tapes likethis. And from actually getting the story real life from the people, not something that someone hadwritten. If I was going to write, it would be self derived. So there’s big difference and then the productthat comes out will be different because the approach is different. Whereas he depended on the writerto give him the truth, which he converted into the cinematic truth for himself, I relied on my images togive me the truth.

I liked the French new wave cinema, I enjoyed watching that, was because I realised that they madetheir decisions because they also wanted to move away from Hollywood, move away from big budgetfilms. I sense they wanted a more mobile kind of location kind of films rather than films from sets andwhen I saw their films that there were no sets there like the old films were from. I felt that that wascloser to the reality that I was trying to create.

SHAI: So you were back here, you met this person, what was the process in terms of funding,

what went through your head in terms of who’s going to watch this film? What did you think ofthe audience, did you care, did you not care, did you just want to make it …NINA: Well in my notes there’s a lot about the audience which surprised me when I looked at it lately,because I didn’t know I was so interested in the audience. I thought I just wanted to create. I hadwritten there that I want an audience, I want to cut across all cultures, I want to cut across all agegroups, because if the language is a visual language anyone can understand. It’s a universallanguage. I have a whole page on the audience in my notes where I’ve said very clearly that I want tospeak to a rural audience, so therefore it had to be pictorial. Even if the words weren’t there, they’llhave to understand how it evolved, the story is so simple. You can understand even without listeningto the words.

SHAI: So did the foundation give you the entire funding? How much did a film like this cost atthat time? How did they see this film at that time because it’s unique to have independent

funding, you didn’t get govt. funding…NINA: I wrote up 5pages and that was what the film was. I got the money on the basis of those 5pages.

SHAI: What I'm trying to say is basically the thing is talking about works that happens on themargins. Because those who are working on avant garde are people who are basically on theoutside of an industry, outside of a formula and what I'm trying to explore is what are thesupport structures that occur within this marginal space…do they exist, do they not exist, howdo we make them exist? What are these independent spaces, so therefore how did you get

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these people from the independent spaces for ‘Chhatrabhang’ to fund it, an NGO…NINA: I think I was lucky, it think this film was basically totally completely intellectual copyright,completely mine as the director, co-producer, editor, cinematography language. I even have a creditthere, which says visual language because I knew I was creating…it is a rare thing to know you arecreating a new visual language/grammar. I wrote up five pages and I knew those 5pages werebasically outline of the film, framework within which I’ll work once on location, and I gave that and itwas approved and everybody liked it and the chairman of the foundation asked me could you give mea spreadsheet. He asked, when do you want the money, I said now, he said I cant give it to you all atonce, tell me how much in January, how much in February, so that delayed the project by six weeksbecause I had to find out production costs and how much and when I would need for editing and all.So I did make a spreadsheet with Naaz’s (my husband) help and therefore Naaz is the associateproducer because he helped me with the spreadsheet and budget and all and he came to locationalso because when I had ran out of film stock. We went 5% over budget.

SHAI: What was the budget at that time?NINA: A lakh thirty and I did it in a lakh thirty-five. I’ve always hesitated to give this figure because ithas a tremendous potential to be marketed and because it’s a classic now. Then I went for a researchtrip, took photographs and did a lot of taping. Except for the dialogue and the words that Amrish Purispeaks was pre-written by Vinay Shukla. The rest is all free formed, dehati language which peoplespeaking themselves…

The poetry, I met the poet in Kanpur. And he was such an intense man he didnt speak to anyone onlocation except for me. He was that intense, he could not talk…nobody could communicate with him.He was a mill worker, he obviously had had a very rough life and he had kept it in him and heexpressed himself in his poetry and I found that his poetry was perfect. This mill worker went back tothe rural areas to see if there were changes there, that was really true, he was originally from the ruralarea then migrated to the mill area and then back to the rural area to see if there were any changesand he was the catalyst in the film.

I felt that every aspect of the film must be archetypal of something…for instance the mill worker wasthe archetype of the catalyst of change. He provided that role, how does social change take place? Iwanted each aspect of the film to provide every single parameter of social change. Social change isnot like a river. Maybe there’s a rock in the river and the water has to go around it. Some displacement

has to take place for social change to occur. One of the levels the film works on, to me is one of theimportant levels, is looking at the process of social change and how does social change occur in therural area. That's why I heard from someone that Mrs. Gandhi saw the film 3 times to find this outbecause I brought this up when I went to Delhi. And The secretary of the I&B told me that she wastrying to find out what this process of social change was, well if there was anything she could imbibefrom it she could make it happen in our rural areas. It’s like a compliment for me to know that. Seelathe protagonist, at the end of the film when you see her clutching the rope at the well and smiling, inher head and then you see the still images which are the imageographs in the film, you’ll see how shegoes over the whole film and becomes aware that she’s a harijan woman. Up till then she doesn’tknow, it took that incident and all the elements of social change to make her aware. From awarenesscan come social change and that's shown in the film. and only after the awareness, when how theytried different methods of getting water, like they go to the police, they try to steal, they go forcibly tothe Brahmin well, there are about 5-6 methods they try and that also leads to their awareness. So the

film is essential about process…

SHAI: Yes I felt that what’s also happening in the film is also your process of making the filmbecomes transparent because you’ve used characters, well they are not actors, they areactually people who are villagers, in their village, enacting, reenacting but something that hashappened to them for real…NINA: Yes what happened in that Maharashtrian village - Sonavni - the Maharashtrian woman is thereal person who it happened to and comes in ¾, not ¾, but maybe a little before ¾ of the film. And itshatters the audience because it tells you that this is not fiction but it actually happened. That's why I

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got the Fipresci award because they found the form was very innovative because it was convincing.Because it had the documentary part of the woman saying this actually happened to her, not someoneelse. When I read about this incident I went to the place where it happened …I filmed her afterwards. Ithink that's very interesting why I didn’t film her first. Normally, now if I were to make another film likethat I would film that first but I came back and filmed her.

SHAI: So let us get to the actual process of getting A.K. Bir and choosing your characters, yourlocation and the process of making your film, how long it took you to shoot, etc.NINA: After I wrote the 5pages, I needed team members and Hitendra Ghosh has graduated fromPuna film institute and came to me, and I asked him to do sound for me. And I have done all thecamerawork on all my films but this time I decided to have a camera person because the location wasfar away and the ratio was going to be 1:4 or 1:5 and I had too many things to sort of think about, and Ihad a clear idea in my head about the visual style and so I decided for the first time to ask someoneelse to do the camera for me. And he and I worked very well together, because Bir understood mywavelength and every shot I framed, I composed every single shot and exactly what he was supposedto do in that shot. Because he understood that I had my own language and he told me I have neverworked in this way before that I’ll give it a try and he understood …that this is a different tonal qualityyou want and everything. So since he understood what I wanted, it worked very well. So that I’mcreating a new grammar, a new visual language. In the beginning I used to compose on the director’sviewfinder and then choose what I liked and then compose it on the camera, then he would look at it,then I would fine tune. Because that's an intimate piece of equipment and then I would tell him forinstance the shot of Seela running behind the hedges to steal the water. I would tell him just pan thecamera, I would tell him what speed even till she got round the bushes and put the ghada on the well.So it worked out very well, for lighting we took a generator with us in case, and we had satin cloth andreflected light from the satin cloth. We had Bir, and an assistant camera, Debu his name is, myself asthe director, co-producer and all that and then we had Hitendra in sound and the sponsor of the filmwas there, one person and associate producer was there Naaz, and we had a production person,Ghulam Rasool. And the sponsor knew the MLA in that area. So that MLA arranged for theaccommodation for us to stay and a little bus that took us to location. Every morning we’d go early inthe morning and come back…

SHAI: Where was the location?NINA: Jogiya village. In the earlier research trip I had gone to find the rock breaker because I knew

that I wanted a symbol in the film, of a sort of manual activity that showed futility in life. I wanted asymbolic visual image that brought that out. And like a leitmotif in music, a note that repeats itself, Iwanted that thru the entire length of the film a sound of that man breaking that rock. A leitmotif to bringout that heartbeat, I knew that was the only way to bring out that heartbeat. It couldn’t be brought outin any other way. It had to be the most oppressed image in the film. He’s the most oppressed in thefilm because even Seela’s not as oppressed as him. Seela is free, she runs with the ghada and steals,but he was like a rock himself. So to me, we had to hunt for that image. Because it was in my head.That image was one of the few images that was in my head and I don’t know where I have… I thinkyears and years ago I saw that image somewhere; it might’ve been on the streets in Bombay yearsand years ago. So that image came from something that I had seen before somewhere in the city. Wewent to 2-3 areas near Jogiya and then and we found in the Banda district there was a quarry. And itwas so perfect because there was a huge boulder right down in the quarry in an extreme long shot.They first put dynamite in the rock and then that blows up the whole area and then the small boulders

are manually broken. And when I said I wanted to shoot this, the team said no we don’t want to behere because a rock may fall on us. So I didn’t do that. 2 shots we didn’t do because the team didn’twant to…there was a shot in the rain that I wanted, but the camera would get wet so we didn’t do thatand then I wanted a shot of the whole area being blown up and a boulder being formed and manuallybreaking down that boulder.

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SHAI: So in terms of working with the villagers, how was that, what were the power dynamicsof that relationship actually? How did you communicate what you were trying to do or trying toget out of them?NINA: I would tell them that I’m making a gaon ki kahani . That it’s a story on the village. Didn’t givethem any details, I wouldn’t tell them what the story was, I would just explain particular scenes. Forinstance when she went to beg for water from the Brahmin woman I just told her that you are going toher, and you are going to put down the vessel, the lota, and that she’s going to fill it with water. SoSeela told me but I haven’t been there, I can’t go into that area. I’ve never entered that area; she won’tlet me enter that area. So I told her don’t worry I’m with you. And I spoke to the Brahmin woman thatshe’s going to come and ask for water and you have to fill her vessel with water. And the Brahminwoman told the other Brahmin woman…

When I went to the rural areas I dint know how I was going to direct them. This was the first time Seelawas going to the Brahmin household with a vessel and asking for water, so to me that was amazingbecause these people never entered each other’s areas and that also contributes to the socialchange. The actual making of the film brought the village people together who had never met eachother. The Brahmin men had never met Jugnu and the other …so the film bought them together in adifferent context. And that I'm sure had some repercussions on their relationship later with each other.I remember the scene where they collect at the corner and they go to the gate and in steps they keptthe courage to go ask for water. So at every point I’d tell them to talk about it and I filmed them from

different angles…in the sense I choreographed the whole film. I used the rural area as my landscapeand I used the spots in the rural area that were interesting visually and I would position thosecharacters in those visual areas and compose the frame…as if I painted over the landscape with mycharacters. It was like choreographing it. Not the whole thing, only each scene that was being filmed.Like in the police scene I told them that now you’ve come here and u are going to ask the police forwater and the well has gone dry…and made them speak…and those things about bache marte hainand all is their own words, I didnt tell them to say that.

SHAI: it’s obviously coming from their own real stories.NINA: Yeah, most of what they have to say is what is on their minds, and they know their own truth.But I just have to give them a gist or line or the idea or…so like Seela says ‘you’ll do something won’tyou?’…Now that’s her saying, I didnt tell her to say that. That was her own spontaneity. Them sayingthat the govt. does a lot for the harijans, so why you coming to us, go to them. That I didnt tell them

to…that was their own…which was very interesting.

SHAI: was it sync sound?NINA: I think there were 2 scenes with sync sound. The rest I would superimpose their sound on thevisuals. And directing them, like when they were running outside from the temple, you know when theyhear the commotion and they come running out…5 brahmin men come running out standing…they arelike power positions, 5 of them. That I had to do about 6 times because they just didnt run properly andI had to show them how to run. Like I held their hands and ran with them, I rehearsed … but themrunning from the temple was the hardest shot because I had to choreograph it so that it looked right.

SHAI: and the shoot took how long?NINA: The research trip was 3 weeks, I can’t remember actually. I think it was a month. Includingtravel time 15 days (for the shoot) and shot on 35mm. And on the last day of filming, we were told by

the MLA that you better complete your filming today because tomorrow they were expecting a loo(heat wave) and he said you wont be able to do anything, I had so much to do …and my scarf Iremember blew off somewhere I worked without a scarf in that heat. The loo in UP is so hot and I thinkI completed two days filming on one day and we just had to complete it very quickly because he toldwe wont be able to do it…

SHAI: and then u came back and the editing process begins, did you edit it or…NINA: I edited every frame myself; I think that’s where the film was made. It’s made on every stagebut this kind of film is made on the editing table. I used the movieola and an Italian steinbeck, an

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Italian equivalent and little bit of time I used the Films Division steinbeck.

SHAI: and then u edited it over a year…NINA: yeah it took one year because I used the imageography approach; in that I let the imagesspeak to me. So I had to run it at least 3-4 times to understand what the images were telling me asopposed to what I told them to, because I feel in this kind of film making, no matter how you go into the

process, the images are not exactly what you put it. This might sound strange to a person who is inHollywood or Bollywood or script writing. Like people who write scripts…Alfred Hitchcock used to saythat after I’ve written the script…every shot is done exactly like the script to mathematical precision.But in my kind of film making I may go in with something, but if the image is telling me something else Ihave to follow that and I have to put aside what I am thinking because it is ultimately the image wesee…

SHAI: Your film shoot took 2 weeks…then your editing process you said was a year longprocess…did u get people to see it, get input from people, when did u feel like the film wasdone, at what point did you feel that it was complete?NINA: yeah, the editing process is the most fascinating process, it reveals things that you didn’t knowabout when you went into film and it gives you little hints, how to put it together and a film can bestructured in 10 different ways and come out with 10 different meanings. And you have to really becareful that you do it the way, the meaning that you want to emerge or the meaning that is the mostpoignant that the film requires to bring out the concept then you have to edit it according to that. I thinkmy editing process has come from my painting process, in that I study the images and let the imagestell me what they are about and then I arrange or…I don’t take out any bad takes because I feel evena bad take tells me something. So I arrange all the shots, assemble, like what is known as anassemblage. Everything is there in front of me and I work in the process of taking out, subtracting.There are 2 ways I have worked, in the short films, one of the short films I chose what I liked bymaking a note of what I wanted and put that together as a rough cut. Out of 30 shots if you say, theseare the ones I really love and make the meaning of the film for me are lets say 17 of those 30shots, soI take out the others and then I edit. But in the feature film, I didnt want to take any chances, I didntwant to take out anything until I was 100% sure. In a feature film I felt that in all the footage there areso many subtleties. In a rural area that maybe one corner of the image maybe something that isimportant, so I did it in the deducting method. Then I removed the bad takes, parts or cameramovement and I made my rough cut. But even when I made the rough cut I put a lot of shots in that

that were not immediately relating to the story because of the emotional content or because of thepacing. If I wanted something to be a bit longer, put in some footage so that that scene would take abit longer to unravel. Then finally I fine-tuned and got to cutting the beginning and ends of shots. Theexact rhythm of the film…that took maybe 3 months. On the movieola I could only work with one trackbut on the steinbeck I could work with 2 sound tracks. So I had the sound effects track and I had thevoice but the music I did later. There’s some singing part, I did that later and in the final rerecording, Iwent to Mangesh at Rajkamal and I remember the day I walked in there because Shantaram wasthere and he said ‘we welcome u with open arms and Mangesh is very happy to see you because he’salways said that sound and visual are as important as each other, very few film makers had come tohim for rerecording …they say the sound is second to the visual and you have come to me saying thatthe sound is as important as the visual…’. And then he did the rerecording for me.

SHAI: so then you finished this film and what were you going to do with it?

NINA: as you said earlier, I did think about the audience but I didn’t think even for a second about thedistribution and the marketing. Since my earlier films went to the festival so I thought this will also go tofestivals and the Bombay film festival was on, I had to give it in by 31

st of that year, so I worked for 3

weeks till 3 in the morning, everyday, 7 days a week to get it ready for that festival. It was entered intothe Bombay film festival and that French critic from the Cannes festival, he was in the previewaudience for the journalists and he came to me and congratulated me and said ‘madam I would like toinvite your film to the Cannes critics week’ - just like that! The first feature film I’ve made, shown it inthe private theatre for the critics/press, not even to the festival audience. I apologized and said that thefilm doesn’t have French subtitles; he said that the film didn’t need subtitles. It was so clear. So I

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accepted and I was invited there for the critic’s week. Critics week and directors fortnight are 2sections in Cannes that are really very, very good. They are not commercial, and they try new kinds offilms and all. And Berlin film festival, these were the 2 that invited it. And then after that I got 30invitations form every major film festival. It went to Locarno, Portugal, Canada…

SHAI: in India did it show alot?

NINA: In ‘76 January it showed at New Excelsior as part of the festival. There were 3 screenings and itwas always houseful. Then it went to Cannes, it went to Berlin, where it won an Award. Then theGerman festival where a distributor bought the print there and he send it to Switzerland, Austria andGermany. It was shown there for 5 yrs and they decided it is a classic so renewed the contract foranother 7. So they showed in Europe for 12 years. I heard later that they didn’t renew contracts likethat.

SHAI: who is this distributor?NINA: this is a distributor who was at the Berlin film festival. They distributed it for 12 years but it didn’tbring much money because they were art audience, art theatres. But when I went to America, I went tosome of the universities there and at that time I had reviews and in the Variety newspaper as this filmis a sure winner. Variety newspaper is THE industry newspaper of New York, you just have to showthat one article and 3-4 distributors will step forward. But you need money for that. I went to 2-3universities and they said this film is the definitive film on rural India we must have it. I didn’t have aVHS to leave behind. You need money to make those things. A professor from California orsomewhere said…oh don’t worry you don’t have money today you’ll have tomorrow, this film is aclassic and you don’t have to worry about that.

I think today we have multiplexes and I feel that multiplexes should show innovative cinema…shouldshow new cinema…if they have 4 theatres they should keep one for NFDC films, films that you showin your festival, my film, films like innovative documentaries. The whole motivation for havingmultiplexes was for smaller audiences like this and I find when I go to a multiplex is a bollywood filmshowing there.

SHAI: You didn’t get a commercial release obviously…NINA: no…I went to one distributor called Rajshree and they said they were interested but it somehowdidn’t happen. And television stations said they wanted it but they were not paying so well. I didn’t

want to expose it to television not till it’s had its full theatrical because it’s a visual film and I didn’t wantit to be shown on a small screen.

SHAI: But how did that make you feel at that time - that your own context is one thatisolates/marginalises your work. NINA: I don’t think that these films are marginal. It is the ignorance of the people making Bollywoodfilms and the so called main stream that is ignorant about films that are as important if not more andtherefore they are not marginal. I think we should not use that word because that undermines theirimportance, and I think they are more important.

SHAI: They are definitely marginalized films, simply as they are being made on the margins ofthe industry…we don’t have a clear support system from within the industry…NINA: In fact, the 80’s and 90’s were much better for new wave cinema and different forms of cinema

and its gone worse now. At least we had 20yrs when my films and other films were shown. When FFC,NFDC and Akashvani were there …and every Saturday there used be a show on TV and also atAkashvani…not released in cinema. I think we should do that now, we should approach a multiplexand when its not a houseful time then we show new cinema.

I think we have to now make that effort to get these films shown at the multiplexes…because if there 4screens at the multiplexes and 300 seating, if there’s a larger audience show it in 2 theatres at thesame time and if it has full theatre capacity then show 4 digital projections at the same time. We haveto have a movement to unearth all these earlier films that were made, that were good, done by FFC,

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NFDC, independent filmmakers, privately funded films, and get them seen. Now, because there aremultiplexes it can be done. Now we have the infrastructure to do it, earlier we did not have theinfrastructure. And maybe somebody has to like…like you did with the festival…I think you maybe theright person to initiate and I give you my full support @ Inox, I can come with u and we can talk,maybe we cud make a list of films and show that there is this other cinema…

SHAI: Who in your mind are the filmmakers who are a part of the Indian avant garde… NINA: I think there are 2 or 3 kinds of cinema. We can’t put all into avant garde because there arestages and phases of cinema. So I think one would begin from some of the early silent films that wehave in India, believe it or not have some kind of avant garde feel to it. But very selectively. I wouldsay Satyajit Ray for instance…his gupi gayan…I would say is such an amazing film. Charulata…musicroom…. Then I feel same classics from Bollywood, from the black and white era I feel there aresome…that polish wala…Raj Kapoor one…I cant remember. One has to be very selective becausethere are not that many classic types in that avant garde, and we have to define what we mean byavant garde. I think avant garde is something to do with pure cinema, which means that it relies on allthe parameters that are used in films but in the purest possible way and then genres that are createdfrom that. So a lot can come under that heading. But all that comes from it are sub parts of it, like letssay FFC’s earliest films, like what Mani Kaul had done, Kumar Shahani, few of Shyam Benegal’s likeAnkur his first film…so one begins from the beginning of cinema in India and comes to FFC andNFDC, mine of course was at the same time as FFC films were being made, then after thatcame…some of the FD films, and very few people are working in that way now. Some of my new films,bout 50-60 hrs of filming that I’ve done that I’m editing, all that would come. Maybe AnandPatwardhan, but his films are another genre. Mira Nair, I feel she’s also a bit Bollywoodish. When shesaw my film before she made salaam Bombay, she said I want to use your approach and I was veryhonoured. She saw it at a little theatre at palm beach and then she made salaam Bombay. But I feelafter Salaam Bombay her films were more commercial, maybe because of survival. Not to say thatcommercial films can’t be avant garde. Hopefully all our films will be commercial. If my art is going togive me money I become commercial, but that shouldn’t spoil my approach. I shouldn’t getcomplacent. I don’t want to do any formula stuff, I just want to keep creating. She has to survive afterall right? So either its survival or she enjoys that kind of cinema and I think she enjoys that kind ofcinema. But there aren’t any…you think of American experimental cinema what they call there wedon’t have it here. Who’s doing that here?

SHAI: What do you see as the new Indian cinema? Because for me I don’t see anything that isfresh. All is still within that formula or a slight variation of that formula. I haven’t seen anythingthat’s fresh…NINA: This digital academy that’s come in the suburbs, some of those students I gave 6 foundationclasses and they came to me to give them lectures…but I think there they are encouraging that kind ofthought process, so I think those films will start coming in a couple of years. It will take time.A.K.Bir recently made a film that I liked, a children’s film he made called Baaja. Now see, in that issomething…a different kind of ethos, a different kind of flavour, texture…it has a script and even if itfollows a formula, it has a set way of working but it brings out a different sensibility…that also shouldcome in avant garde. Then Ghatak of course.

SHAI: Also, you know I feel in India scale is really significant. When it’s large there’s respectand when it’s small it’s seen as a step to that. Even now you have a lot of short film festivals

but it’s never respected, like even the filmmakers use their short films as a step to making theirfeatures. That I think is something that needs to be broken down where then you can actuallyunderstand the medium, what the medium can do.NINA: yeah I agree with that, this is why they have Oberhausen short film festival, and then they haveKrakau Short film festival. Even in India we have that Bombay short film festival, MIFF every alternateyear. So there is recognition of short films. After all we’ve had a history of miniatures in Indian art,which are as important as a big huge canvas. In films the thing is the market has up to nowdetermined what is important because film is an expensive medium and if you put so much money intoit…that’s why in feature films there’s a lot of money. So it is just the market economy and that is what

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decides that a feature film is important. But if audiences are created for short films and u get moneyfrom that then that becomes the market, then that would immediately make short films important. Itsnot that people don’t consider short films important, it’s the market that makes that differentiation. Andthe market has controlled the people’s minds. If the market changes and they accept and economicallythe short film brings money into the market economy then it’ll become a major thing. I mean if peoplego to a theatre where 10 short films are shown instead of one feature film, and you go to see thoseshort films, get your tickets by paying your money then it will change the mental attitude of the peopletowards short films. The other factor is short films just come and they go, its in a dark theatre, its sofleeting, and you cant grab it, you cant hold onto it, but in a feature film you spend time, from 6:30 inthe evening till 9 at night that one work. So you’ve only spent 5 minutes and that 5 minutes better bereally fantastic. If you spend a long time then it can be a long boring time or a substance time.END

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