Screen Play

A little distance away,60-year-old documentary producer Jill Nicholls was constantly moving her camera to capture every move of his. She had begun to understand Rajasthani folk music. After all,she had taken a three-week-long tour across the interiors of Rajasthan in October,apart from filming each performance at the Jodhpur RIFF. The filmmaker and producer with BBC was in India to make a documentary on the acclaimed festival that attracts music connoisseurs from across the globe. Her film,titled The Lost Music of Rajasthan,was aired on BBC Imagine earlier this month.“I have made other documentaries on performing arts earlier,but this was my first project in India and what an experience it has been,” says Nicholls. In a telephone conversation from London,she adds,“We took a road trip to several villages and met musicians like the saffron-clad,chillum-smoking sisters,Jamuna and Mali Devi,cross-dressers and gypsy dancers. These artistes,for whom music is a way of standing up against the caste system,are very fascinating. Making a film on them,and the festivals where they perform,takes them to audiences world wide,” says Nicholls,who feels that the Bollywood sparkle has decimated the ranks of rural musicians.

Indian music has had fans world over since a long time,but the nation’s various music festivals have begun to attract attention only recently. Not surprisingly,filmmakers are considering the proposition of filming both the audience and the performers who enthral them. They are willing to travel around the country,from Pune to Goa,to fulfill their endeavour of documenting music festivals. If last month,in Pune,32-year-old Samira Kanwar was shooting at NH7 Weekender to make a 50-minute documentary on the expanding Indie music scene in India,some 400 kms away from Delhi,in Naukuchiatal,20-year-old Lloyd Baba-Alexander Sabin,a young German filmmaker,was soaking in tunes of reggae,fusion,electronica and blues at the Escape Music Festival. He interviewed musicians and recorded them playing music for his short film.

“A festival is over in five days but a documentary is a way of preserving a great experience,like a music festival,for posterity,” says Kanwar,filmmaker and co-owner of Mumbai-based production house Babble Fish Productions. Kanwar’s film on NH7 Weekender can be viewed online. Last year,she also made a film on Bengaluru’s Invasion Festival. The organisers of the festivals are only too excited. “The idea is to create memories and a film is a filmmaker’s personal story. However,it also enables us to rope in sponsors and artistes for the following editions of the festivals,” says Ritnika Nayan Shrivastva,one of the organisers of the three-day long Escape Festival that had its third edition in Naukuchiatal,in May,earlier this year. Sabin captured the essence of the festival in a five-minute film. “He will be back in India in January to work on a full-length feature film on the festival. It should be ready by mid-2012,” says Gary Steele,another organiser.

Not just professional filmmakers,even music fans are now being given an opportunity to make films on music festivals. With the Sunburn Festival 2011 scheduled to take place in Goa later this month,Percept Pictures has announced the film Sunburnt: The Sunburn Movie. This will be a compilation of videos recorded by fans attending the festival. “People attending the festival can make a 10-minute long video and mail it to us. We will choose grabs and make a 90-minute long feature,” says a spokesperson of Percept Pictures. The film being made from the perspective of the fans will be out in the first quarter of 2012.

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