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At his creative best
SANGEETA
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S. Nalla Muthu’s ‘Dharm’ was screened at the ‘Cinema of the World’ section of Cannes 2007.
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I think Tamil Cinema is at its productive best now…
Behind the camera: S. Nalla Muthu’s ‘Dharm’ is the first Hindi feature film to be shot on High Definition for theatrical release in 35mm.
He has gone a long way – from a remote village in Valliyur in South Tamil Nadu to Cannes, where his film ‘Dharm’ was screened in the ‘Cinema of the World’ section of the festival this year. S. Nalla Muthu cinematograph
ed ‘Dharm,’ the first Hindi feature film to be shot on High Definition for theatrical release in 35mm.
Nalla has also produced and shot features, documentaries and television programmes for both national and international audiences under his banner Grey Films, which consists of a three-member team.
Testing ground
“My team consists of my wife, Anvita Adeshra, the researcher, and Akansha Sood, the executive producer, and me. Our interest lies in the genres we have covered – wildlife, environment, travel, science and technology, history, reality, medicine, women, children et al. We ventured into feature films in early 2006 with the Tamil movie ‘Naalai.’ It was a testing ground as a producer. And the film did fairly well,” says Nalla.
Nalla’s tryst with television happened way back in 1986 after he passed out from Film and Television Institute, Adyar, Chennai.
“I joined feature films as an operative cameraman. I worked in a couple of Malayalam films with Vipin Das and with Madhu Ambat in Mani Ratnam’s ‘Anjali.’ But somehow I could not catch up with the pace of cinema. Then, television was coming up and ISRO was recruiting high speed specialised cameramen for visual documentation of the rocket revolution.
“I joined the R&D wing and filmed the launch of ASLV, PSLV and Agni. They had state-of-the-art equipment and the work was technically fulfilling. But at the end of the day, it is a government job,” says Nalla.
He moved to Films Division and then to Delhi where he joined Miditech’s flagship television shows such as ‘Living on the Edge,’ ‘The Great Escape,’ ‘Off the Beaten Path,’ and ‘Wheels and Hospital.’ ‘Living on the Edge’ won the prestigious Panda award in 1996.
“It was a beautiful experience. The Alva brothers, Nikhil and Niret, and myself were very clear that we wanted real, candid images. It was quite different from the television we were used to.”
Nalla’s credits include freelance productions for BBC World, Channel 4 UK, Discovery International, Fox Channel, and NGC. He has also won international acclaim for his cinematography of documentaries such as ‘Soul Searching,’ ‘Immortality; Man-eating Leopards of India,’ ‘Brased off Britain,’ ‘Soul Connection’ and ‘Human Face Transplant.’
He is currently working as producer-cinematographer on a children’s film, two wildlife documentaries, and a feature film in Tamil.
“It is a sort of homecoming, both to cinema and to Tamil Nadu. I belong to Valliyur in Nagercoil District. Bitten by the cinema bug, I moved to Chennai. I think Tamil Cinema is at its productive best now, and one should use it creatively,” he avers.
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
|
