Sandesh Kadur

Sandesh Kadur, though based in Brownsville, Texas, makes his home in forests across the globe. Images, Sandesh feels, have the power to move people in a way nothing else can. And it is this power he hopes to harness through his work and inspire his audience to protect and appreciate what remains of our wilderness. True to his name, he brings the message of the richness and beauty of nature far beyond its boundaries.

From behind his camera, Sandesh Kadur sees the world from a very different angle. His passion for wildlife sets him apart and has earned him worldwide respect as one of the most promising photographers and documentary filmmakers of his generation. Through the use of images both still and video, Sandesh exposes the need for conservation and encourages protection of the world’s bio-diversity.
Currently a Naturalist and Filmmaker at the Gorgas Science Foundation and working with the University of Texas at Brownsville, he has photographed and filmed countless species from the Cloud forests in Mexico to the Western Ghats of southern India. Considered an “emissary for the Ghats”, his documentary titled - Sahyadris: Mountains of the Monsoon earned worldwide acclaim and a slew of prestigious international documentary awards. These include a Special Award for Wildlife Conservation, a Gold REMI Award for Creative Excellence, a Merit Award for Cinematography, as well as a nomination for BBC’s Green Oscar for Best Newcomer of the Year, among many others. In 2005 Sahyadris made its television premiere and was one of the highest rated shows on Discovery Channel India. One of his projects at the Gorgas Science Foundation is to produce short 10-15 minute documentaries as part of a science curriculum about the natural history of south Texas. These shows, on subjects ranging from Hurricanes to Sea turtles, serve as a teaching aid with a conservation message built in and are shown in schools throughout south Texas. Sandesh’s next major documentary project is about the Kemp’s ridley sea turtle in Mexico and its conservation success story.

Apart from documentaries his photographic mastery has also won him international praise and spawned his most recent project - a book about India’s Western Ghats - A Vanishing Heritage, which was released in late 2005.

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Pavi

Pavi’s story in her own words --
“To me Dr V's story is a dream-of-a-story come true. An improbable hero thumbs his nose at the impossible, stands up against incredible odds and fights the Good Fight. It's about a man whose work has reached the proportions of legend, and whose spirit reaches out to encompass the world. It is a story with so much specificity- in terms of time and place and date and subject- and yet it is a story that speaks of universal constants. (Beauty and Truth. Yes And Service). I don't know that there is a better kind of story. On a personal level- he is my granduncle. I was schooled in reverence of him. His greatness was taken-for-granted, a reflex assumption that never deeply engaged the head or heart- until this film. I'm an English major, trained in broadcast journalism, and I come from a family of 24 (and still counting) ophthalmologists. This film in many ways is my apology for not being an eye doctor. A small attempt to emulate my heroes. Because films too, in a sense, are about helping people see. Through the journey of making Infinite Vision I think a special truth opened up to me: that we can change the world by changing the stories we tell. That slow dawning realization I think is what inspired me then and continues to inspire me today. To use these skills as a writer/filmmaker/storyteller to serve a broader purpose. To use stories as catalysts for change within and without.

A note written during the production phase reflects a little of what the journey was like:

"This is our first film. There is so much to do and so much to learn before we can do it. And not that much time. But there is such energy in every day- a 'tide of mighty surgings' that bears it all making my head and heart spin, but not stand still...This morning after our reading, Dr V said smiling just a little, "Sometimes powerful forces act on your life...at these times you must try and be still, because otherwise they cannot stay. You must step back and stay calm...and you must take time to see the sky..." Much later that same day I remember his words and smiling a little look up...Behind Aravind the sun is setting and a silver cloud strangely shaped stretches five fingers each edged in bright gold over the roof of the hospital- a quietly spectacular blessing. Take time to see the sky. And that would become the catch-phrase of the making of this film, an inside joke and an inner reminder…Walking the beachfront in Pondicherry alongside a pumpkin moon in a black ink sky, a sudden rainbow surging out of dark blue clouds over wide green fields en route to Theni, and in the scorching heat of Madurai midday, feather mattress clouds piled one on top of the other in an impossible sky, clouds high above us changing shape and size and colour, clouds that in those moments when we paused for breath took our breath away. Reminding us to be reverent, of this time, this place. This here and now. "When a man is in contact with his soul...everything opens up in a different way." That's what Dr V says. And it's true. When you take that kind of time, you start seeing the soul-that-shines-through. Everywhere. The bravery in the smile of a little boy with bandaged eye. The poetry in the wrinkles of an old woman's face. The kindness in a doctor's hand. The peace in the silhouette of a temple at twilight. And the everyday blooms into a miracle. Every day."
 

The closing quotation by Dr V in the film is simply this:
"Intelligence and capability are not enough. There must be the joy of doing something beautiful."
May we all have that joy.

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Ricardo Lobo

A worldwide director, Ricardo Lobo studied documentary production at the Global Village and film directing at the New York Film Academy. Social and humanitarian issues are the focus of his work. Combining investigative reporting with a keen eye for visual storytelling, he has been hopping around the world for eighteen years.
Mr. Lobo has directed over 30 films for commercial networks and public television, as well as independent productions broadcast on the BBC, CNN and other major media outlets. Shot in four continents, these films are as diverse as their environments. But all of them share deep humanistic values, a close rapport with compelling real-life characters and outstanding cinematography.
Mr. Lobo’s many awards include the World Medal at the New York Festival, the Ibero-American journalism award presented by EFE (Spanish News Agency), the Prince Rainier Award at the Montecarlo Festival, the Ayrton Senna and Vladimir Herzog awards for special reports on children and human rights. He has undertaken assignments for the United Nations in New York, Africa, Asia and East Timor, where he headed the television station implemented under the UN mandate.
Mr. Lobo’s filmography embodies a strong gender focus. He has documented women’s resistance against fundamentalism under the Taliban in Afghanistan, having produced the groundbreaking “Behind the Veil” film, as well as women empowerment stories in diverse locations from Spain to the Himalayas and Indonesia. Mr. Lobo has also worked as documentary director at TV Cultura, the largest public television station in Latin America, winner of two international Emmy awards.
Mr. Lobo’s documentary “Women of the Sand” is now part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has completed his first narrative feature film “Fatima”, a breath-taking story of a beautiful young woman who returns to war-torn Baghdad and must make hard choices to survive amidst chaos.

Mr. Lobo is a Brazilian-born U.S. resident with European background and Asian imprint. He is a hybrid cosmopolitan director with a broad world vision.

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Pavithra Narayanan

Pavithra Narayanan is Assistant Professor of Postcolonial Literature, Film Theory and Production and Women's Studies, at Washington State University Vancouver, Washington. Economic policies, gender, and globalization, with a focus on India, are the central issues in her publications.  She has a strong commitment to community-engaged research and has for the last several years focused considerable energy in producing documentaries that engage critical issues in contemporary Indian culture.

Professor Narayanan, who is from Kerala, India, has a strong background in British and Indian Literature and in Women's Studies. She holds Masters Degrees in Mass Communication and English, and has completed a Doctorate in Postcolonial Literature at Bharathidasan University in Trichy, India. In the past, she taught in the Women's Studies Department at Miami University of Ohio.

Professor Narayanan's documentary India and Free Trade: A Closer Look at Bhopal, marked the sixteenth anniversary of the Bhopal Union Carbide disaster. The tragedy has been estimated to have killed some 20,000 people and resulted in countless chemical injuries and long-term disabilities.

Professor Narayanan is currently working on a documentary that is exploring the growing national movement to resist military rule in northeast India. The focus of the film is on arms deals.

"I see film as one of the most powerful media for talking about social issues," reflects Professor Narayanan. "It's one thing to give a talk, and it's another to do a film that really show people what's happening."

Professor Narayanan has taught courses in ‘Documentaries and Social Change’; ‘Global Feminism: Women from South Asia’; ‘Beyond Bollywood’; ‘Introduction to Women Writers of India’; ‘South Asian Film Studies’; ‘Documentary Film Theory and Production’; ‘Made in Britain: Black British Literature’;  ‘Postcolonial Literature and Theory’; ‘The Margin and the Center: Twentieth Century Postcolonial Film, Fiction & Theory from Australia, New Zealand and Canada’; ‘Global Literatures in English in the 20th and 21st century.”

Professor Narayanan covers her exciting journey from India to the United States and into the global academic and film-making arena very succinctly in what she calls  ‘A Little Biography’-

“forty three years ago,
in a government hospital,
on the west coast of india,
when the sun was high and water was in scarcity,
a child of no consequence was born like all children are.

forty three years later,
in another continent,
i stand on the lone (far left) side of the classroom,
and through a maze of word-o-mania,
i trample across continents, through people's lives,
carelessly, carefully,
thoughtlessly, thoughtfully,

stopping for minutes to recapture history, stories, tragedies.
sometimes understanding,
most often not;
questioning violence, beliefs, systems,
and the whys of existence;
wondering at the end of the day
if i have come even close to the reason of my being.

i have not.

and, writing an autobiography is a narcissistic act!”

-p

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