Me, Myself and Ranga
Ranga has been good to me. He has helped me a lot in the last one year. I met Ranga one day in a restaurant when I had one of those panic attacks, called 'Deadline Fast Approaching, and No Idea in Place'.
A week to go for my thesis film script submission deadline and here I was whining at a family dinner at a cosy lil restaurant round the corner from home. My bro, as always, turned saviour. He mentioned this Tamil novella that was a family favourite. He narrated a particular story, which I had last heard read out by my dad years ago. As he spoke, forgotten images reappeared in my mind. In the hurry to grow up, I had forgotten this childhood bed time story. It was a wake up call right in time.
I hoped my audiecne would long for the nostalgia of suhc a story. I did, at the least. Where even villains were cute and lovable, and the biggest angst of the protaganist was that he had to play a girl in a village play, to be watched by a sparse crowd of 30 men, if at all!
As I dug into my sambar idli (a south Indian delicacy) with gusto, I realised Ranga could possibly save me.
And he did.
The film went on to win the "Best Film and Director" award at the Graduation ceremony of my film school (L V Prasad) and I received the honor from the hands of Oscar winner A R Rahman. I can never forget how he laughed at all the right places in the film, while I watched him nervously, my heart in my throat!
It was thanks to that film that I travelled to many film festivals (including The Delhi International Fest), and was invited to the Pusan Film Festival's Fellowship program. I also landed a job as a screenwriter in Bollywood, and had the good fortune of working with the legendary filmmaker Santosh Sivan (his film 'The Terrorist' made it to Roger Ebert's 100 Must See films). All this in the span of a year.
Now I have turned media entrepreneur, with plans to make a subtle change to the way internatioal film collaboration can be realised in India. Thanks to my invitation to Berlinale and Pusan, I have had a remarkable learning curve where I have become even more confident that cinema is universal and we can all collaborate in creating a global cinema, using the latest cutting-edge tools of remote communication.
In 2008, my film 'ART' fetched me Best Indian Filmmaker Award from Reelshow, and now 'Ranga Plays a Girl' is up in competition with the best student films. May the Best film win. :)
I take this opportunity to thank Reelshow and all my fellow filmmakers. Cinema unites. It connects and elevates. And in these times of global warming and Human Coldness, I think cinema can be the binding glue for humainty.
From me, my team, and Ranga, a very Happy, peaceful and Cinema-filled New year to you all!
PS: As I write this, I am 3500 feet above mean sea level, close to the Himalayas, India. I am honeymooning with the love of my life. (Yes, we got married last week). Ranga has played a part in that too. But that's a story rserved for later. If and when Ranga takes the bow :)
A week to go for my thesis film script submission deadline and here I was whining at a family dinner at a cosy lil restaurant round the corner from home. My bro, as always, turned saviour. He mentioned this Tamil novella that was a family favourite. He narrated a particular story, which I had last heard read out by my dad years ago. As he spoke, forgotten images reappeared in my mind. In the hurry to grow up, I had forgotten this childhood bed time story. It was a wake up call right in time.
I hoped my audiecne would long for the nostalgia of suhc a story. I did, at the least. Where even villains were cute and lovable, and the biggest angst of the protaganist was that he had to play a girl in a village play, to be watched by a sparse crowd of 30 men, if at all!
As I dug into my sambar idli (a south Indian delicacy) with gusto, I realised Ranga could possibly save me.
And he did.
The film went on to win the "Best Film and Director" award at the Graduation ceremony of my film school (L V Prasad) and I received the honor from the hands of Oscar winner A R Rahman. I can never forget how he laughed at all the right places in the film, while I watched him nervously, my heart in my throat!
It was thanks to that film that I travelled to many film festivals (including The Delhi International Fest), and was invited to the Pusan Film Festival's Fellowship program. I also landed a job as a screenwriter in Bollywood, and had the good fortune of working with the legendary filmmaker Santosh Sivan (his film 'The Terrorist' made it to Roger Ebert's 100 Must See films). All this in the span of a year.
Now I have turned media entrepreneur, with plans to make a subtle change to the way internatioal film collaboration can be realised in India. Thanks to my invitation to Berlinale and Pusan, I have had a remarkable learning curve where I have become even more confident that cinema is universal and we can all collaborate in creating a global cinema, using the latest cutting-edge tools of remote communication.
In 2008, my film 'ART' fetched me Best Indian Filmmaker Award from Reelshow, and now 'Ranga Plays a Girl' is up in competition with the best student films. May the Best film win. :)
I take this opportunity to thank Reelshow and all my fellow filmmakers. Cinema unites. It connects and elevates. And in these times of global warming and Human Coldness, I think cinema can be the binding glue for humainty.
From me, my team, and Ranga, a very Happy, peaceful and Cinema-filled New year to you all!
PS: As I write this, I am 3500 feet above mean sea level, close to the Himalayas, India. I am honeymooning with the love of my life. (Yes, we got married last week). Ranga has played a part in that too. But that's a story rserved for later. If and when Ranga takes the bow :)
posted by R S Prasanna | 5:49 AM
2 Comments:
Happy Married Life !!
I liked "Ranga Plays a Girl" a lot.
All the best for your new venture.
Hi
My name is Paromita Vohra and I saw your film in Trivandrum - I enjoyed it very much. I'm co-curating a package of short films for a small festival in Italy and I wanted to get a DVD of your film to send for selection. Would that be possible? Could you email me - parodevi@gmail.com - so we could figure out how?
Looking forward,
Paromita
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