Actor-director Ravi Chand creates a film with refreshing honesty from his experiences with 'Namaste Yoga'.
In 2020, a nationwide call-out made by ABC and Screen Australia was made for The Kaleidoscope Project to showcase the best of Australia's next generation of culturally and linguistically diverse filmmakers. In 2021 six filmmakers were sorted out from many highly talented and competitive emerging storytellers. So, when Ravi invited us to his premier on the 19th November at Cinema Nova, Carlton, we couldn't help but be there to witness his journey.
From the moment, he got accepted into the Kaleidoscope Project to his release date, it was approximately two years, and they had to postpone the shoot thrice due to COVID.
Thankfully, that worked in Ravi's favour as the COVID delays meant he gave more time to the script, with the actors, Elders, Community and my vision. "It is why you see the level of detail in Namaste Yoga", says Ravi.
During the lockdown, everything was held on Zoom - writers' rooms, meeting with cast and crew, auditions, creative meetings, etc. During the shoot, everyone had to test for COVID and send the results to the production team the night before. Everyone on set worked with masks and had a COVID Safety Officer. Everyone had to be double vaccinated, and the kids had a separate area during their downtime. Ravi had to be particularly careful as he was a writer, director, and producer and played the role of the father in Namaste Yoga.
Namaste Yoga refers to what it was like for Ravi growing up, what he didn't get to see, and how he would represent on his behalf. Ravi talks about the damage that did to him and made him feel about himself. While making the film, he was guided by the community; there was an entire community team. "I'd always be like, " Okay, well then, let's take us back to what this means for our characters and how that affects them as well?" adds Ravi.
We get to see the storytelling always grounded in the truth, but it was also from a young child's point of view, for example, his six-year old son. So, if his son sits and watches it from start to finish, then Ravi knows he has done his job.
He candidly speaks about him stuck in time. His mother passed away a week before his eleventh birthday in a car accident.
There's this part of his childhood that is trapped within him that he can tap into as if it's just like yesterday, and he knew he would want to create or see something as a kid that he would feel proud of.
Ravi made it quite clear, even in the writer's room, that he is making this for our kids, the primary audience is kids, and he knew that ABC has a much larger audience of kids. Shiv and Kali, the child protagonists in Namaste Yoga, were beautifully played by Emil Jayan and Ellora Iris, who went into professional workshops. Yet the kids had to act naturally, learning their lines and dance choreography.
There are a lot of layers to Ravi's Namaste Yoga and mainly when he talks about Mother Earth as the place of our ancestors. In this land, we are born; Karma is the work we do with indigenous people. Ravi makes it clear that Yoga is not Bollywood. The main takeaway from Namaste Yoga is that it is indigenous. There's always this perception that Indian cinema is Bollywood, the furthest thing that Ravi wanted it to be. Not that he has an issue with Bollywood, but this is very different.
The characters of Shiv and Kali are two sides of his character, two sides of his personality growing up, so when Ravi moved to Australia in 1982. It was strange for him to see a person of colour in school and the entire suburb. Facing racism was frequent and quite common. The first racist slur he met was when he was just five years old, and he was trying to go under the radar, trying to blend in and just wanting to be an Australian kid. Whatever that meant, he was soon trying to get accepted and shedding away from his culture. The other side of him was Kali, where he was getting into fights nonstop.
Ravi explained that they had discussions with elders worldwide from the concept stage to the script scene.
Ravi points out that the music in Yoga is quite sacred and significant, so the entire progression of the story is about the journey from darkness to light. They did a lot through the way they cut lighting, the colour grading, and the explosion of colour towards the end. Translating some of the lyrics is very difficult to explain, just with subtitles; it says from the unreal to the real, from darkness to light, from death to immortality, and the meaning of that sums up amid Yoga and the whole story arc.
It's profoundly indigenous and decolonizing complex themes and the language that kids can understand and continue to have conversations with their loved ones.
"Grounded truth, the movie has a sense of belonging and connection to culture - with emotive language and versatile camera hues, the storyline takes its characters and viewers from darkness to light. It explores heavy themes about identity and multiculturalism with subtle humour and authenticity." Sancheta- professional Kathak artist and cultural entrepreneur.
The premiere of the film was attended by Screen Australia, Victorian multicultural commission, Canter for Multicultural Youth, Multicultural Arts Victoria, Australia, India, Samantha Ratnam, City space Federation of Indian music and dance, Bernard Acharya Association Victoria, Senators Susan G. Pereira, and several incredible supports of the Indian and South Asian media, community and veteran leaders.
Nandita Chakraborty