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Pan Nalin, a self taught filmmaker, was born in a very poor family in a remote village of Adatala, in India. The richest thing his family gave to him was his spiritual upbringing. However, Nalin spent most part of his childhood on railway tracks and platforms where his father sold tea & snacks. Right from the very young age he was fascinated with mirrors, lights and shadows. Adatala village's remoteness and proximity to wildlife areas added to its natural beauty and tranquillity, where imagination of a child had a vast scope for creation and innovation. As a child Nalin disliked schools, instead he used to paint and draw besides wondering about here and there. Often he used to stage plays with children or participate in mythological dramas. However, he saw the first movie at the age of 9 or so, since that day he always wanted to 'become' movies. Later, as a teenager, he left his family and village for a far away city, and ventured into a world completely unknown to him. When Nalin learnt that he would have to be a graduate to go to a film school, he started to learn filmmaking on his own. During the day he studied fine-arts and during the night he worked to finance his studies and living. In order to take free English lessons from a Christian missionary, he cleaned his office, assisted him in the church and distributed free copies of old testaments to tribals. Eventually Nalin got admission to study at India's prestigious design school NID, The National Institute of Design. At NID he studied visual communication but devoted most of his time to learn filmmaking. Besides he managed a very successful film club where he screened and wrote about films. He often organised film festivals and retrospectives of films of Tarkovsky, Godard, Bergman, Kurosawa, Eisenstein and Bunuel among others. After shooting some 4 animation and 20 little silent films with 8mm and 16mm Bolex, Nalin came to conclusion that the best film school is life. Thus he began travelling across India and learning all he can learn about himself, his roots and the rest of the world. Tired of his nomadic & homeless existence, ultimately he landed up in Bombay with 26 Rupees in his pocket and bagful of unfinished scripts. He joined a film Production Company, eventually as production runner and then on as Production Manager. It took only few month for the producers of the company to realise Nalin's talent and offered him to direct commercials and corporate films. The instant success in commercial world not only brought money, but also great learning experience. In a year's time Nalin started 'Ideas Unlimited' a film production company which rose to become one of the best. However Bombay brought no creative satisfaction to Nalin and he always felt like an outsider, he also refused offers to direct typical Bollywood masala films. One day, overnight he sold all he owned and set out to travel in Europe. For six long months he lived out of his backpack and saw Europe.....Nurturing life. On returning to India, he roamed Himalayas and built a solid spiritual foundation besides developing ideas for several feature films. Along with the process of writing he experimented with short fiction film format, eventually landing up with many un-finished short films. Nalin made several documentaries in collaboration with Canal Plus, BBC, Discovery, National Geographic, France 3, and so on. All his films evoke a unique universe of spiritual quests in light of erotic, sensuality, faith, religion and society. It was in 1993 that he felt it was right time to make his first feature film 'Samsara' but since then it has taken seven long years before this reality would turn into a dream. As told to Anne Magidson. |