EXCLUSIVE! Pranab Aich on Nanda Master'nka Chatasali: 'It's a truly, honestly Indian film without any propaganda'

Popular photographer and filmmaker Pranab K Aich, who took India to the global stage with Manayun and Torch, has once again made the country proud with his latest docu-drama titled Nanda Master’nka Chatasali.

It is based on ‘Nanda Master,’ the 104-year-old Prusty, who provided free education to children and villagers in the Kantira village of Jajpur district, Odisha, at a roofless school for seven decades until his demise. In recognition of his outstanding contribution to education and social service, he was awarded the Padma Shri in 2021.

After getting its world premiere at the 29th Kolkata International Film Festival on 7 December 2023, it became the first Odia film to be presented at the Bharat Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival 2024.

As the filmmaker is promoting his debut docudrama at the ongoing Platform Busan 2024 – the prestigious sidebar of the Busan International Film Festival, in an exclusive interview, Pranab shared the journey of making Nanda Master’nka Chatasali, his thoughts on narrating Indian stories and more.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

Journey of making Nanda Master’nka Chatasali (Nanda Master’s School)

So it should, be more than a short film. And the producer had to do it. He wanted it to be a feature film. So we went on to make it a feature film. And, we also discussed on making a picture on it.

But, because Nanda Sir is a real man, and I’m more known as a documentary maker. And, the magnanimous personality that Nanda Sir is, any fiction will not justify him. And, that also when he’s 102 years old, 103 when I start start shooting. By the time he left us, he was a 104.

So, we choose to make a documentary, and we don’t convert it into a feature film. We added the documents with drama part wherein we work with real actors, with real people, and mostly non-actors, and, created this film, you know, or you call it documenting hybrid people, wherein we have shown his past life with actors and the present life, which is mostly the 70% of the film that is documented in the present life. As an old man, so his life is learning through a documentary narrative. So overall, we have tried to play it as a documentary, as himself and his grandson are narrating the story.

And, the past lies, they’re narrating. And, you know, by the time we reach the middle of the film, you are in the present time. So keep switching in between, but mostly, it is presented as a document. We have a true story, which has happened, in our time.

How did the audition process went through? Were there any apprehension while casting non-actors?

Yes I do. I because I’m making documentaries, so I’m used to working with real people. So but with real people, it is always challenging even if you have done 100 films. Because every time you come across a new person, and maybe he’s not necessarily interested in filmmaking. So, obviously, you have to convince them hard, and you have to be a good man to be able to convince them. Not necessarily a good filmmaker.

Because of my past experience, having worked with NGOs and then been making documentaries short for a long time. So I don’t talk about myself in the beginning. I talk to them, I meet them, I spend time with them, and then tell them that I want to.

So in fact, the first time we went there to meet them, we never told them that we never told and the family that we are planning to tell them. It’s later that, you know, the second time we met, we told them.

This is the document we passed. But if you talk about the past life which I have enacted with lot of non-actor, so that is auditions in the village area. There’s only one actor, the lead, who is into theatre.

Yeah. But this is the new film. Otherwise, all of them, most of them are, like, non-actors. More than 90% are non-actors. And somebody we found, you know, farming.

So, we asked him he would like to play the role of a person who runs a bullock cart, who rides a bullet cart. He said, yeah, I can ride a bullet cart. Then we picked them up, and we said, would you be able to tell some dialogue? So he kind of said, I’ll try. We said, are you confident?

He said I’m confident. I can sign. So we will try and make we’ll make it happen. So I used a process. We did the auditions along with my production controller.

He’s not a professional production controller. The audition no guy who did the auditions, he is only the production controller. He was the local guy where we shot the past life. So he was known to me.

So he because he listened to me and he could quickly catch my sensors what I’m looking at. So he did a very good work in casting. Whatever requirement I gave, he gave me options of similar kinds. I told him that I need an actor. Just think of this character and the kind of appearance that I want.

The person should shoot the character and appearance, and the person should be confident enough to be able to perform. That’s it. He should find a confident person. Even if he’s not a film person, he’s not interested, it’s still okay, we’ll convince him.

So the entire film, we were you know, the entire set of actors, the characters to convince them was one of the toughest parts of making this film. And the good thing, about this, is my producer, Abhaya Pati, he did not, in the interfere creative process of making this film. So he’s a first-time debut, producer. So he had his own inhibitions. And being from a very small film industry in Odisha, he had his own inhibitions, and he had many doubts because this is an independent kind of film and going to festivals.

He was very much interested in festivals, and despite with his lack of knowledge, we constantly worked on it together. But one thing I must say with this first-time producer is there to stay because he did not interfere in the entire creative process, he gave me the go-ahead that it’s your call. You are the director. I have nothing to tell about the creative process. That was what gave me a lot of, you know, a lot of motivation to do.

How you manage to make the film more real and authentic?

In terms of making it more authentic or real, I’m a very real person. I stay very grounded in my life.

So, I do yoga almost every day and I make sure I do it under the sun, not inside the AC room. Okay. When I go out, to film or go out anywhere, I make sure I drink the water of the place, not in bottles and whenever we shoot in my productions, we use organic plates, which can’t leave plates or something like that to make sure we dry our flesh not to tamper the nature. So because I could I have similar practices in life.

I could manifest the kind of person he is and bring his character to the screen. And at the same time, I mean, obviously, if you are able to comprehend the character of the film the character of the film and the theme of the film, then you’ll be able to make it as real as possible. And, also, the entire process that goes into making documentary filmmaking is that I don’t interfere much with people’s life.

A lot of lot of people do a lot of, kind of, constructive shots. I don’t do that. I try and avoid constructive shots. So, because, especially when you’re making a feature film, it’s very important to be as raw and as real as possible. Because the short film, you know, a lot of things you are not able to tell in a limited time, so you kind of construct.

But feature films have enough time to kind of bring it up. So I thought, to make it shoot him, follow him because he’s a 100 year old man, so one has to be very sensitive while shooting. So we made sure that we did not bother his timetable. We did not poke him a lot. If he is walking, we followed him.

He’ll be sitting. We sat next to him. So, and, also, all of before that shooting, I tried to find out his story from his family, from journalists, from people who did little stories on him because there were other journalists who did stories on him, news on him. Also, with my vast experience in documentary filmmaking my previous short films are in the festival. I’ve been making a lot of content for NGOs worldwide, I don’t know, for last 12 years.

And also having shifted to Delhi, from Delhi to my small city, from where I hop into my village every month. So staying close to my village kept me grounded and understanding of the reality of our culture, the character who is a villager. You know, it’s a different thing to go to a village, visit a village once in a while, hop into a village, and make an international world cinema independent film. And then live come back in the city and eat burgers, and live in the AC and wine, fine, dine, and then talk about good cinema. I’m not that kind of person.

I live in the village. I spend time once every month in the village with villagers. So I cannot sense how, but since going to a village, I have a very good sense of it. So being a villager myself. So, I just try to capture the real because I know what is real. So that that that helped me.

Biggest takeaway from the film?

Nanda Sir has become one of the highest inspirations. You know, people say he is my inspiration. He is my inspiration. I don’t believe in that.

I believe it doesn’t happen like that. One person becomes an inspiration. There are stories. There are, known, situations from where you learn and get inspired. For me, Nanda sir, I might do more but till now, he is kind of the inspiration among the stories that I have shown.

He’s a person who lived his life on the basis of his ideology. What he said, what he preached, he did the same. He is not someone who taught something else and did something. Such compassion and honesty in life. Even I made sense, real sense. But, to match Nanda Sir’s scale of, you know, honesty and, integrity, it is really, really difficult.

He lived with a family. He had a family, but he had his grandsons later on build a concrete house with a little bit of good business, but he never shifted to that. He said, I will live in the Chawl because I have not done this, and I’m not interested in this. I want to live a simple life. You just give me food. That’s it. I don’t want anything beyond food. Whatever I get, I’ll give you. So, obviously, he’s a huge inspiration for me.

He’s a reconfirmation for all of us, who want to lead a simple life. The story of this person should reach everyone, especially today’s youth who are mostly lost in this modern luxury-oriented commercial world where everyone wants to just have fun. Everyone is talking about what is my right.

Today’s youth, mostly so-called rebel youth, a lot of intellectuals also, including the filmmaking fraternity. They talk about what is my right. What this country act on? What this world is offering me.

But you have to see Nanda sir to understand. It is not at all about your rights. It is only about your responsibility. When you take care of your responsibility, the whole world takes care of your rights. So, you know, in fact, recently, I heard Sachin Tendulkar telling this that when I was playing, you know, a lot of people said bad things were a good thing.

Sometimes I was bothered by the bad things that were happening. At the same time, I was very happy with the good thing that was happening. And this was, you know, disturbing my career. So he said, when he talked to his guru, Ramakant Achrekar, he said, you just focus on your game and let the world decide and celebrate your, failures and glory. You don’t focus on the failures and glory.

You just focus on your own. So, Sachin said then on, I have never, focused on how much people love me, how much people hate me. I’ve just focused on my work, and I’ve left it to people. So, for that, I think Nanda Sir is like, he focused on his work and left it to god. Because he’s a spiritual person, he left it to god.

Why filmmakers are leaving the heartland stories and narrating the stories focusing on metrocities?  

We have so many stories right in our own heartland. Like, every village has a story, which is a gem. But like, if you see the 2 most talked-about filmmakers today, you know, including Payal and Shaunak Sen. The latter was my batchmate in Jamia. So he chose to make a film on Delhi.

Then Payal chose to make a film on Bombay. I don’t have anything against them. They have the craft. I’m not talking about the craft. Obviously, they’re very good filmmakers in craft.

They’re the best in the world now, so that’s why they’re awarded. But when in terms of telling the story, for me, is different from theirs, they might have the right story for people who have ordered them. But when I talk about my land, when I talk about our country, so our country is a country of villages. Right?

Still, 70% of India lives in villages, and we love living in villages. We will always be villagers. Right? Because our entire system of the village is very powerful. It’s very, very nature-friendly, very, you know, socializing and security friendly because one villager will stand for you.

If there is something happening in the village, the entire village will stand for you. So in this,  are we doing injustice that we are not telling our own stories to the world, not even ourselves? So at least, even if something commercial is happening in Bombay, these filmmakers are already choosing to shoot (film) Bombay, Delhi, metro city. But why are, these filmmakers and they’re also been getting lot of big awards. These filmmakers are focusing only on craft and stories based in cities because all of them stay in the city.

You know, all of them in the pursuit of a bigger budget, you know, bigger opportunities, these filmmakers choose to stay in the city. So they tell stories of the cities. You know, it there’s nothing wrong when, you know, Kantara director, said that Bollywood does not show the real India. A lot of, these independent filmmakers today are going to international festivals and selling negative stories about India.

Because in cities, there is so much chaos. So you’ll end up showing negative stories. I’m okay if there is a struggle. We should in every story, even if in you are in a village, there is still an opportunity of showing struggle, showing conflict. Only you don’t need to show stories of cities, there’ll be conflict.

Also, they have been too politicized, to fit into the intellectual fraternity, they try to focus only on the political aspect of filmmaking. You know? Whatever sides, I think, you take, but I feel there are more ways of telling stories to people and letting the world know about great things and changing the world by still avoiding the city stories, still avoiding the mainstream politics. Because there is so much in India. They’re not short of stories.

So that’s why I chose to, film this. Though, obviously, my producer wanted to one way to make it, it has been a couple of years that I’ve been looking for a story that I wanted to do. You know? When this came to me, I felt that this is the story.

I have been looking for it. I have been looking for something which is more Indian, which is more honest, which is which is more of our villages. So that’s why I accepted because he gives you that. Reflection of that 100 years of India. You know, the last 100 years of India, how India has changed, and this man stays still like a statue. It’s like the statue in the middle of the traffic.

This film is, for me, is like a statue in the middle of the traffic where Nanda Sir is standing and the world is swimming, and he could not move an inch. And let 100 years pass, and he’ll keep doing what he’s doing. So I could see this, so that’s why I chose to capture it. And, also, another important thing was, you know, taking the Indian award Padma Sri. Though we did not plan to shoot the Padma Shri initially because the award was not enough.

But when it came, we thought it’s a great opportunity because we always talked about Nobel Prize. You know, our filmmakers from India choose to make them some Nobel Prize winners. That’s fine. Yeah. We all love Nobel Prize.

We have nothing against it. But we also that our own heroes and appreciations. You know, it’s no less we are one of the world’s oldest legacies, of the ministry. So why not, you know, take the ordinary award to the global stage? This is the kind of person who looks upon us.

This is the kind of person who gets inspired, we want to support and promote. So let’s tell the world. But unfortunately, I’m very sad that NFDC, India’s biggest forum for filmmaking, that also from the government, they did not choose to show my film at, the Mumbai International Film Festival when they had an opportunity to choose 200 films. And I don’t think I’m any less of than any filmmaker because I have already focused my films in a lot of big festivals. I shot documentaries.

Our movie was screened at, Nandan Van Centre. So all the passes are already sold, and when, we have the screening, it was raining heavily. But, you know, by enrolling people, they were almost housefull. I don’t know from where they came with umbrellas, you know, with, with books on top of their head. Somehow, they managed to reach the theater, and about 700 people are watching the film.

So it was a good learning phase because they had made it more, our 13-minute film, which we thought is a long little longer after watching it in Kolkata. So we choose to make a 90-minute film. Also not because of the longer, also because the festival timing slot generally fits in around 90 minutes. So we thought that today’s audience is also very impressive. It’s not a film to just win awards in festivals and keep it in a locker.

We are planning to release this. We want to take it through OTT. We want to distribute in Europe. Very regular. Europe, I have some meetings with the distributors, in Germany.

They have selected this film for the market exclusive section, and they’ve invited me to Germany in. This is the oldest documentary festival in the world. So but we are, like, still for us, going anywhere, but India. Because there we are eyeing that for us, for me, for my producer, for our team. You know, it’s an Indian film.

It’s truly, honestly Indian film without any propaganda. It’s an honest film without trying to say good or bad about anyone. Whatever came, we shot it our way and put it into a film. So we want to be a meeting. We want to show our film unity.

I don’t know if this is the right way to do it. Ideally, it should go through the process, but in myth, it went through the process. And if Cannes likes my film, MIFF is a very smaller festival, and it’s an Indian festival. They’re showing 200 Indian documentaries, and they choose not to go around. I felt very bad about it, very sad about it with kind of profile that I have.

I’ve been to Cannes. I have in the past. I’ve filmed up in to Dublin, to Beijing. These are all bigger festivals than MIFF. So, but, I want to be in the field.

I request, the NFDC, you know, the film, festival programmer. We are not looking at any award. We are looking to showcase our film and everything so that it gets the platform. It is the millions come to know about it, you know, more so that so that, we are able to release it to reach out to people and so that everyone watches this film. The world knows about this film, and it is already creating ripples, but, we have already applied for.

The results are coming next month, I guess. So, waiting with some for some good news. Anything else?

In future, will we see you as a commercial filmmaker making fictional stories?

See, the thing is that I focus on good cinema or honest cinema and cinema where everybody is not focusing on. Stories on that people are not focusing on.

Because in the Indian Institute Festival fraternity, there are a lot of these, negative stories sell. So, I was looking for a positive story. Already people are so conflicted with negativity today. There’s so much war. There’s so much, abuse, online abuse, whatnot.

I wanted to tell a story of struggle with conflict, but a positive one so that people get inspired. People feel good about it after all. People feel good about life. So, that’s why I made this film. So, I don’t rule out making the work of fiction or you say, I don’t believe in fiction, in fact, the work of fiction.

No work of acting, you know, film which are enactments, which are, with actors, but on real stories, on real people. I don’t, you know, something which is very close to real. So I don’t rule out that. Maybe next time I would go for it because I’m planning to film one in Odia, one in Hindi. Because also, I have lived in the Hindi world for a long time, and there is a larger audience.

So I would make a film in Hindi, and I have a huge circle of trained actors. I lived in Delhi. You know, lived around in an NSD. So a lot of actors and friends, they keep telling me what does it mean, sir? Why don’t you make a picture or fiction?

So I am certainly thinking of that now. But I would choose to make something on the farmers or on environment. Not that and I would really like to go deep, not on the surface. You know? Sitting on a coffee shop, picking out of the certainly I’m not going to do that.

So I don’t rule out. I am, thinking of that. Documentaries come very easy to me, and India is a tradition of, you know, documentary making. You must be thinking, what am I saying? All our, which is actually history, they are all.

There’s nothing which there is no character that has been written about, that there’s a story we follow or listen to from our, is unreal. They’re all real people. So that’s why I believe even if you’re making a work of act with actors,  I don’t like the word ‘fiction’ so I don’t use it. This is already a lie. You’re already telling I’m telling a lie.

But then why at all are you telling? Then why are you being so boastful if you’re telling a lie? So, I don’t believe in the word fiction. So that’s why even if and I kind of love the idea of docudrama because there are some things that you can never see in a documentary that is already gone. And there’s something that is already present in front of you.

You know? So whatever is gone in the past and whatever is happening in the present, you put them together to look at the future. So that’s why it’s kind of docu-drama is something that suits the kind of work I want to do. So even if I’m doing a work of so-called work of fiction tomorrow, so there is it is a real man around the story. I’ll try to pick a real man around the story and shoot with him as well, at least some parts of it to make a comparative analysis.

But docu dramas do not fit into film festivals that much. Either you are in the documentary or you are in the fiction.

Recent Bollywood film, which you feel showed the real India?

This film that is going to the Oscars, you know? Laapataa Ladies. Yeah. I believe that’s a good film.

But though, there a lot of deprivation being shown through that. But the filmmaker puts it in a good way, which will not necessarily create a bad image of India. So the filmmaker very smartly uses the anti-narrative that festivals love in a very positive way. Okay. Connecting it to organic farming.

So I like, the choice of somehow, you know, the kind of content that Aamir KHan used to do is. Though they are critiquing but at the same time, they have a venting space. So it’s important that you tell negative stories. You tell stories of struggle from cities, but your stories need to have venting space. And if they don’t, they suffocate.

If they suffocate, then it’s of no use making a film. And you make a film for yourself. That’s fine. You win an award. But these films, if those who are next generations, they are looking for answers.

They are not looking for questions. They themselves have questions already. So wise man will try to suggest them answers to their storytelling or through whatever art from their art. We as said, why is this? Suggest solutions to our youth who have a lot of questions.

Then further confuse them with questions. So that’s why I did not want to make film making which raises too many questions. I would bring up questions but also suggest solutions. But there is a space of vent out. You know?

Like, you stay in an ace, luxurious house. It’s fine, but you should also have a window. You know? It should also breathe the real air, not the AC air.

So it’s okay to stay in a luxurious house, but it’s not okay to cut off yourself from the nature.

A cinephile, who loves, eats and breathes Bollywood and south cinema. Box Office specialist. Obsessed with numbers and trade business of the entertainment industry. see more