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Journalism of Courage
Steven Spielberg8217;s pick for a reality show, filmmaker Shalini Kantayya, is wearing her cause on her sleeve with a film on India8217;s water crisis
When steven Spielberg threw open the hunt for a filmmaker through the Fox reality show On The Lot last year, Shalini Kantayya was in. As film junkies across the world watched, Kantayya survived week after snarky week and ended up as the only woman and filmmaker of Indian origin in the last ten. What she took back from the show were comparisons with Shekhar Kapur and Mira Nair and the skills to survive the punishing schedule of a film every week. 8220;Getting in was a great high as it was Spielberg who picked the contestants for the show,8221; she said.
For 28-year-old Kantayya, who calls herself an 8220;activist filmmaker8221;, the show was her introduction to mainstream Hollywood. 8220;It was like a pressure cooker where everything is monitored. I practically lived on coffee for weeks. I had to write, plan, direct, edit and come out with the full version of the movie in a week8217;s time apart from not being allowed to be in touch with family and friends.8221;
Since then, she has moved on. In April, Kantayya8217;s 17-minute film A Drop of Life released with a red carpet premiere in Los Angeles and went on to win the Best Short Film at the Palm Beach International Film Festival. She plans to bring the futuristic film on the global water crisis to India soon. It8217;s a subject Kantayya is passionate about. 8220;What we don8217;t know is that between one-half and two-thirds of the world8217;s population will not have access to drinking water by the year 2027,8221; she says. The film, shot in Kutch, Mumbai and New York, describes the story of two women, a village teacher played by Nandita Das and an African-American corporate executive played by Lisa Jessie Peterson, whose lives intersect when they meet the lack of access to clean drinking water head on. Nia Peterson comes to India to finalise a deal that would put plastic prepaid credit card meters on village water pumps; Miraben Das discovers that children in the village are falling sick after the installation of the meters and takes up a fight against the system. The film has been produced by Rahul Haria who was drawn into the project because of his keen interest in water issues in Kutch.
Kantayya graduated in human rights from Hampshire College, Massachusetts. Her choice of career did not inspire much confidence in her parents, who immigrated to Connecticut from India. But Kantayya persevered and moved on to study cinema at City College in New York. Later, she freelanced for various production houses and edited videos for Sting, Mariah Carey and Phil Collins.
In 2002, she came to India on a William D. Fulbright Fellowship to make a documentary film. She made films like Manthan-The Churning on Kumbha Mela and Bombay Longing, the story of a lesbian journalist. In her two-month long stay in India on the banks of Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati documenting the Kumbha Mela, she fell in love with the place.nbsp;8220;The sheer beauty of the river moved me. But I began to question the practice of throwing filth into the Ganga.nbsp;When I researched, the factsnbsp;astounded me.nbsp;India is on the edge of a huge water crisis. I came to imagine a world where only those who could afford to pay the rising cost of water could afford the human right to life,8221; says Shalini.nbsp;Finances could have been an issue if it was not for a dedicated cast and crew, some of whom were also friends. 8220;Most worked for little or nothing but they shared the vision of the film. It was the commitment of the entire cast and crew that made this film possible.8221;nbsp;
In the films she made for On The Lot, Kantayya wore her Indianness on her sleeve, inviting a lot of the Brown vote, much like recent US TV icon Sanjaya Malakar. But she has a distinct American sensibility. 8220;I find that living in New York City is unique to the American experience.nbsp; My dearest friends are from every corner of the globe8212; Japanese, Nigerian, Indian. Living in a landscape of immigrant stories is a rich wellspring of inspiration for movies. It makes me feel like a global citizen.8221;
What next? An admirer of Aparna Sen, Kantayya wants to make powerful, socially relevant films in the future. Right now, she is working on a science fiction trilogy of feature films about eco-superheroes. Her inspiration: the Indian epics and George Lucas. 8220;Mahabharata and Ramayana are great stories. And if you look at Star Wars, it was the first film to really transform global culture. I want to make a film that attempts something similar,8221; she says.
