Niyantha Shekar

I’ve written and directed three episodes in This Is My Hood, a new documentary series produced by Red Bull Media House and Supari Studios. The series explores the rise of hip-hop communities across India, and you can watch it here:

Chennai: https://www.redbull.com/int-en/episodes/this-is-my-hood-s1-e4

Kolkata: https://www.redbull.com/int-en/episodes/this-is-my-hood-s1-e2

Following the abrogation of Article 370, there has been an unprecedented lockdown in the valley. Niyantha and Mukti will not be able to make Raqs-e-Inquilab today. At this point, we don’t even know when anyone will be able to make a film like this again. Most importantly, we do not know if the artists featured in the film are able to practice and what their state of mind is, or how safe they are. “Our film released on YouTube a few days before Article 370 was revoked, and we had no idea (like most of the country and the world) that such a decision was in the works. We were very keen for the film to be out as soon as possible, and so when Journeyman Pictures expressed interest in distributing the film, we decided to go ahead and put it out through them,” Niyantha starts. Although the artists have seen the film, at the time of this interview (August 28), the crew had not been able to reach them or Azaan Shah (one of the cinematographers of the film). Contact has been severed since August 5.

“This truth further hit home for us when we filmed an art camp that Hina led at a school in Srinagar, and the majority of images that the children drew represented the signs and consequences of conflict: a bloody chinar leaf, a young girl with tears in her eyes, someone injecting themselves with drugs, a cry for ‘HELP!’, a map drawn with a barbed wire border, a colourful, beautiful bird caged, and so on,” Niyantha says. One of the key questions for the directors when they began their research was what art means to these artists from the Valley. Is it a source of catharsis? A mode of self-expression?

A documentary that I co-directed, edited and produced, Raqs-e-Inquilab (English title: Art in a Time of Conflict), which premiered at the South Asian Short Film Festival in Kolkata earlier this year is now live on YouTube through Journeyman Pictures, one of the world’s leading distributors of original documentaries.

Raqs-e-Inquilab interweaves the personal narratives of four Kashmiri artists, three of whom – Syed Mujtaba Rizvi, Hina Arif and Zeeshan Jaipuri – are children of the conflict, their impressionable adoloscent years years landing right in the middle of the region’s most violent period in the 90s. The fourth character, renowned painter and art teacher Masood Hussain, grew up in a time of relative peace before becoming witness to Kashmir’s tragic transformation. While their individual traumas are unique, they are connected by their pursuit to process this splintered world through unfiltered artistic expression.

We're forever grateful to Masood sa’ab, Hina, Mujtaba and Zeeshan for trusting us with their stories, and to so many people - from Kashmir, Mumbai and Chennai - who helped us on this two-year journey to make the film and put it out.

Hope you like the film.

Hey, thanks a lot! A couple of years prior to quitting my job in tech, I started taking writing classes in a nearby university and I had the best time. Writing went from being a casual hobby to something that I really wanted to do. And I wanted to give myself some time to focus on it and see where that would take me. 

I was very lucky that I could financially afford to quit my job at that time and take a break for a few months to follow my interests in writing and photography. I also felt that if writing didn’t translate into a career for me, I could interview again for tech jobs and hopefully find something that would keep me going. 

Photo by Zahra Amiruddin.

“Far from the madding crowd of the fish market, where catch is traded every minute, is a quieter ice industry, which ensures the fish that reaches Mumbai’s homes and restaurants remains fresh. Documentary filmmaker Niyantha Shekar found that this mini-industry, which runs for close to 17 hours every day, is fuelled by the work of men from Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district, who turn slabs of ice into a form that can be used to store fish. Their labour has a repetitive, almost rhythmic nature, and this is translated into the visuals of Niyantha’s short film, Baraf, which documents what a day in their life is like.”

News! National Geographic has selected Baraf for their Short Film Showcase.

Baraf, a short documentary I directed and edited earlier this year on the ice workers of Mumbai, has been nominated in the Best Film, Best Director and Best Editor categories at the Critics Choice Short Film Awards!

Directed and produced this film for Kabadiwalla Connect, a company that helps manage waste more efficiently and inclusively by working with the informal waste collection and recycling ecosystem.

What began as a photo essay on the ice workers turned into a short film, Baraf – Ice Men of Mumbai. Inspired by Bert Haanstra’s Glas and Sergei Loznitsa’s Fabrika, Baraf dispenses with dialogue and narration and uses visuals and background sounds to recreate the repetitive and relentless nature of labour.

“Just as Mumbai is replete with migrant stories, so too are the Sassoon Docks where people from all over the country come in search of vocations. Baraf, a short doc by filmmaker Niyantha Shekar, is one such story of the community of Unnao, that has practiced the job of “ice-breaking” for over five decades now. The untold story of this community brings the spotlight on this marginalised community which forms an integral part of the Docks.”

A short documentary that I directed, produced and edited on Mumbai’s ice workers is now streaming on The Vibe. Do check it out!

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Step into the world of the ice men of Mumbai, a community of immigrants, who work around the clock to crush, shovel and haul baraf (Hindi for ice) to the fish market and to the boats heading out to sea. Baraf is essential to almost every step of the fishing supply chain at Sassoon Docks, Mumbai's largest fish market, and this film takes you through a day in the life of the workers responsible for it.

CREDITS

Director & Editor: Niyantha Shekar Director of Photography: Anirudh Ganapathy Sound Design: Suren G (Valentino Suren) and S Alagiakoothan Live Sound Recording: Niyantha Shekar Colour Grade and Title Design: Anirudh Ganapathy Producers: Niyantha Shekar & Anirudh Ganapathy

Special Thanks: Ice workers of Sassoon Docks Mukti Krishan Hayagriv Murthy

Fishing in the Arabian Sea.