November 2007 Edition

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Samita Rathor
New Delhi

NITIN Das says his mission is to make ‘extraordinary films with ordinary people.’ He has recently completed a magical film about a young boy who finds a solution to global warming from a monk in the Himalayas. The film, ‘Global Warming-A Fable from the Himalayas,’ is storytelling at its best. Nitin proves that it takes less than eight minutes to make an impact. The film is powerful, yet simple and subtly humorous. The entire cast was from Kaaza, a small town in Spiti Valley. An electronics engineer with an MBA in marketing from the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, Nitin quit his corporate career to become a filmmaker. Recently, he won a special award by the British Council for social entrepreneurship in the creative sector.

While working as a brand manager with India Today he started a weekend theatre group called 4Play. After a few street plays, they graduated to films. Nitin then quit his job to do a short course in filmmaking from New York (2005). When he came back to India, he set up a company called Filmkaar Productions. Nitin’s first project was a sci-fi comedy film called ‘Formula 69’, a humorous adventure of three final year students of IIT who use their crazy inventions to solve a murder mystery and find a cure for terrorism! This feature length digital film was made with the students, staff and alumni of IIT, Delhi. Nitin’s underplayed sense of humour is apparent in all his projects including his website which says: “The revolving Filmkaar logo has been programmed to hypnotise you. Sit in a comfortable position and focus your attention on the logo. Start counting the number of revolutions and as you do so... relax. Relax your breath. Relax your body.....Relax your mind. After some time you will begin to feel happy and peaceful. You will also want to donate money to Filmkaar Productions!” Nitin’s global warming film is about Norbu, a small boy who lives in a happy village in a hidden valley.

One day, an evil spirit takes control of the weather and starts creating chaos. Now Norbu must journey across vast mountains to find a way to stop this evil spirit and save his village. He finds a monk who hands him a few seeds to counter the evil spirit. Norbu is surprised and asks, “How can these tiny seeds save my village?” The monk explains that one seed when planted will grow trees which have 1,000 seeds and that means a 1,000 trees that contain a million seeds. “And once the trees return our problem will disappear,” said the monk. When Norbu asks him what if the seeds do not grow into trees or get destroyed, the monk says the real seed is the one I have planted in your head. It is that seed that you must grow and spread. Instead of spreading his message in the form of documentary, Nitin chose to make a fairy tale. The narrative is gently funny and will appeal to young or old, local or glocal. According to Nitin, fables and mythological stories like Panchatantra have always inspired him as they are so easy to understand.

He feels that fables capture the people’s attention. “Maybe the idea of the story came from within I guess,” he says. “I told my story in the form of a fable because it would appeal to a larger audience,” he says. “We are trying our best to screen this film in schools and colleges.” The message of the film is to plant trees and spread awareness of how fast global warming is impacting fragile ecosystems. The film was made possible by Spitiecosphere, an NGO in Spiti that works to preserve the culture and environment of the region. The actors were picked from the neighbourhood of the Spitiecosphere office. First, there was a round of auditions. All the children who congregated to see the camera took part. “It took us five days to shoot in Spiti and another five to edit in Delhi,” says Nitin who is an ardent warrior of the planet.

You can watch the film on www.youtube.com/thenitindas
Phone Nitin: 93502 60437 or E-mail: thenitindas@yahoo.com thenitindas@gmail.com; Website www.filmkaar.com

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