Our animators have not mastered visual stylisation

Govind Nihalani talked to Shana Maria Verghis about Kamlu, a kid’s animation flick about dreaming the impossible, set in Rajasthan, featuring a baby camel. He said it will be free of his trademark dark storytelling style and also discussed the state of Indian animation films.

After making gritty, angsty movies on heroic adults facing their nemesis, in a variety of environments polluted by people whose mamas didn’t spank their bottoms hard when they were kids, Govind Nihalani has turned his ideas to creating a kid’s animation film about a baby camel who wants to fly.

It is called Kamlu and is set in Rajasthan which is Nihalani’s place of birth. Coughing over a bad throat, the director, chatted about this children’s film which he hoped to complete in 2007. We were sitting at a special effects studio in Andheri, Mumbai where Nihalani was conferring over another film.

“I was always interested in graphic art and animation,” said Nihalani, who has given us box office fare in the past, like Ardh Satya, Aakrosh and Dev. He added, “And my fascination for it grew some three decades ago when I had assisted Ravi Mohan. But the technology wasn’t there nor had the market developed. In the last 10 years, things changed, and people have been setting up local animation education institutes. Earlier, Indian artistes were mostly storyboarding for outsourced work.”

It is true that from applying finishing touches to commissioned artwork from outside, animation companies here have begun to have more visible presence, featuring in recent Hollywood films like The Golden Compass and Alvin and The Chipmunks. The accolades are also been far more frequent.

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Image Source: The Hindu