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With Game of Thrones fans around the world eagerly waiting for April to catch the final season of the show, the makers of the show released an official fan anthem video. The video featured everything from videos of the theme music to GOT-inspired weddings. And there’s an Indian entry in the video as well! A special tribute from Kashmir is the only bit from India to make it to the video.
A beautiful fan film called ‘The Cure – Game of Thrones Kashmiri Tribute’ has featured in the video and is being praised on Twitter. The beautiful rendition of the theme music features traditional Kashmiri instruments like the rabab and no’t. The tune has been played by musicians Sufiyan Malik (rabab), Hujat Kirmani (piano) & Zakir Bakshi (no’t & guitar).
Although many Indians might have liked to see the group for longer, the sound of the rabab is haunting despite the short duration for which it features.
The video combines some of the most popular tributes paid by fans from across the globe. Describing what it means to be part of the official video, the director of the fan film, Ruman Hamdani, said, “It’s a surreal feeling.”
Talking to the indianexpress.com, Hamdani said, “It feels great to have been featured by them. We’ve been fans of the show for almost 8 years now and it’s an inexplicable feeling to have our tribute being acknowledged by them.”
The tribute from Kashmir also features characters inspired by those in the hit HBO series. So there’s a Jon Snow accompanied by his own desi Night’s Watch and there are some superb shots of snow-clad mountains. And there’s a cameo by Tyrion and the Night King.
Shot in Gulmarg, the video had garnered a lot of positive feedback when it was released last year.
“I kind of hoped that they would notice our video. But I didn’t know we’d be featured because there are millions of fans and so many tribute artworks. I guess it’s the fruit borne by the hard work we all put in this video,” he said, adding that they did not see this coming.
Hamdani said that he and an associate, Xulkarnain Dev, financed the video, and with the support from the state’s tourism body, the group of young videographers and photographers shot it in just a week.
What was supposed to be just a simple video of the track created by the three young musicians, went on to become a tribute to the works of George R R Martin. “They had made the track already and they approached us to shoot a simple video for it. I took up the project but I wanted it to be something that visually feels like it’s a part of the GOT world. So we came up with a story and production design that just did that,” Hamdani said.
