If you meet Suchendra Prasad, you will know that he has a great sense of humour. Behind that serious façade lives a clown. Everything he does, be it picking up a coffee mug and sipping from it, can keep you in splits. So you would think here is a funny man who can make one of the funniest films ever, but no. He prefers to make serious, educative films such as Prapaatha and Sangdhigdha . While the former talks about the first aeroplane made by an Indian, the latter is about child rights.
He justifies his choice saying, “I always felt there were enough people to make others laugh and that there were few who were touching upon certain subjects. So I decided to make use of the powerful medium of cinema to communicate those ideas meaningfully. For me, cinema means to present ideas that are not being touched upon and those that needed in-depth research. What others ignored became my forte. This was our means to voice issues that had been silenced. So we started documenting tradition, heritage, people, language,” says the actor, who is now in the news for being a part of the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP). He will work with various NGOs with UNDP, chronicle their efforts in areas of their work and make documentary films of various lengths.
“This happened by chance. UNDP has a centre in Bengaluru and are into development activities. We approached them to see if they would be interested in associating themselves with Sangdhigdha . As the discussion progressed, they asked me to document their works here,” explains Suchendra, who adds that he and his team have started their leg work and the project is a part of UNDP’s probono scheme. “It will be my contribution and I will not get any monetary benefit.” He looks forward to this as it will be his “way of contributing to UNDP. We have begun with farmer’s and women entrepreneurship. The documents, which will become their property, will be used by UNDP during their presentations or as study material.”
Where does that leave his films? “It should not affect my career as I will need a month’s time for each document,” states the actor-director, who is not new to world of documentation. He has been involved making documentaries for the past two decades with his own guild – Voicing Silence, formed in 2000. “It is an international guild for documentary makers. We have 46 filmmakers from across the globe as members,” beams Suchendra who has till date organised three International documentary film festivals.
Voicing Silence has covered ancient history, culture, farming, women entrepreneurship, Sanskrit, health issues, AIDS, ICAP (Indo-Canadian AIDS Project), budget and its policies, biographies especially of those who have turned centenarians. These are uploaded on YouTube.
He tries and does everything differently. His latest film Sangdhigdha has not yet got a theatrical release, but Suchendra has been going to various schools, educational institutions and child rights organisations to screen it. “We will eventually release the film. As of now, the focus is on making the film reach out to as many people – parents, Child Rights Commission, those in authority and so on. The film talks about child rights and how we have distorted them in our country. We have many safe guarding tools these days, yet, the rights have been violated. Instead of releasing the film in theatres, I dream of taking the film to every home.”
The film is being screened at various international film festivals across the world and Suchendra is thrilled that “Maneka Gandhi watched the film and has commended our efforts.”
What next? He reveals, he is currently working on a full-fledged Sanskrit film titled Tatraapi which means “even there. Vishnu Sharma has written the Panchtantra with moral stories, which will be juxtaposed with reality and contemporary ideas in my film. I want to tell people that Sanskrit is not dead but can be used effectively to communicate. In fact, there are five states in India that have Sanskrit as their official language. Most scriptures have been written in Sanskrit too.”
He is not worried about finding actors as “there are umpteen actors who are fluent in Sanskrit. He adds that the film will have subtitles so that everyone can understand the film. “We are looking for the right producer. Once that happens, the project will take off.”
Commercially and professionally too he has quite a few films to look forward to. There is Kannadakkagi Ondannu otti , MMCH , Beega and Chemistry of Cariappa to name a few. In some, you will see him in his comical avatar.
