Bangalore: To tell seven stories in 16 minutes is a formidable task — particularly when they are not ordinary stories, but those of seven individuals, both young and old, who have Down Syndrome. But Bangalore-based filmmaker Pavitra Chalam has managed to pack all these tales quite eloquently into a 16-minute short film, so much so that it has managed to get over 17,000 hits on YouTube less than a week after being uploaded. Additionally, the film has already become one of the most viewed videos in the site’s Nonprofits & Activism section.
The film, aptly titled Indelible, is India’s first official entry at this year’s World Down Syndrome Congress at Cape Town, South Africa. Slated to be held from 15-17 of this month, the Congress will see Indelible being screened as part of the closing night, something that Chalam is thrilled about. “I’m very excited about that, but it is really the last few days that have overwhelmed me. The response has been fantastic - every time I wake up, 1,000 more people have the seen the film,” says the alumnus of New York Film Academy, who recently started her own film production company.
Chalam, who chose this field because she ‘always liked telling stories and how films affect people in deep, powerful ways,’ first came across people with disabilities when she made an award-winning film named Khushboo in 2010, on children with special needs. “That was when I realised that I would definitely like to make more films like this,” she elaborates.
A long term personal association with Surekha Ramachandran, chairperson of the Down Syndrome Federation, India, is what sealed the deal. “When I told her that our team was interested in the project, she said to me, ‘Pavitra, your lives are going to change forever.’ She was right; this entire journey has been one that has absolutely transformed me,” she says. Ramachandran, too, figures prominently in the documentary.
Indelible strings together vignettes of the lives of people with Down Syndrome, but not in the same, sombre vein as perhaps some other documentaries on the same topic. As Chalam puts it, “These are happy people, so this is a happy film.” And happy it is, be it Babli Ramachandran by the seaside, or a shot of young Ashwin Poddar playing cricket. It even features Special Olympics gold medallist Archana Jayaram. “I had a great team working with me on this film. Everyone was so heavily invested in it and they really understood the subject,” says Chalam, adding, “Telling these stories through this film was like describing someone you love to an absolutely stranger, because we got to know them (the seven) so well.”
The project came with its set of challenges, with shooting in and around Chennai topping the list. “The heat was miserable!” she says, laughing. “What we thought was going to be our biggest challenge, however, was getting them to open up to us, since we were practically like flies on the wall and were with them all the time. But they completely let us into their lives.”
While there are other projects in the pipeline, right now the team is focusing on finishing the full film. “We started Indelible in May and so much work just went into the short version. Hopefully, we’ll be done with the full length one by October,” she concludes.
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