Friday, November 24, 2017

19th Madurai Film Festival 2017 : Filmmaker in Focus - Gitanjali Rao

19th Madurai International Documentary and Short Film Festival 2017

Filmmaker in Focus – Gitanjali Rao



Gitanjali Rao graduated with honors as a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Sir J. J. Institute of Applied Art, Mumbai, in 1994. She is a self-taught animator, film maker, illustrator, teacher and theatre artist. She has since, independently Produced, Directed and Animated three Award winning Short films, ‘Orange’, ‘Printed Rainbow’ and TrueLoveStory.

‘Printed Rainbow’, premiered at Cannes 2006, Critic’s Week, in Competition.  It went on to win the three Awards for the best Short film, at Cannes 2006.
It was also short listed in the last ten films for the Academy Awards in 2008, besides winning 25 International Awards and traveling to over a hundred festivals worldwide.

‘TrueLoveStory’ also premiered in Cannes Critic’s Week 2014. It has been screened at various International Festivals and won four Awards.

She also has a string of very popular and award winning animated commercials to her credit. As well as a graphic novel. Gitanjali also conducts workshops and presentations and has been in the jury at various International Film Festivals including The Cannes Critic’s Week 2011. She is currently pursuing her next animation film Bombay Rose. She has been teaching storytelling, design and 2D animation, in various animation schools in India.

Films:



PRINTED RAINBOW
Animation/English/35mm/15min/color/2006/India
Directed, Animated, Produced by Gitanjali Rao
‘Printed Rainbow’ is a journey of a lonely old woman and her cat into the fantastical world of her matchbox collection.

ORANGE
Animation/English/4min/color/2002
Directed, Animated, Produced by Gitanjali Rao
‘Orange’ is a conversation between two women about love and the loss of it

CHAI
11min/color/2014
CHAI is a short film exploring the lives of four tea sellers in India. Merging the mediums of documentary, fiction and animation, ‘Chai’ is a part of 5 films that describe India.

BLUE
Animation/01 min/color 
Director : Gitanjali Rao 

'Blue' is a little girl's dream about exploring space, with her cat. 
'Blue' was an exercise in story telling without using words. 
It was created in the traditional style of progressive animation using colored pencils on colored paper. 
It was made in the days were computers were not used too widely for animtion in India.

GIRGIT

Animation/80 min/color 
Director : Gitanjali Rao 

'Girgit' ( Chameleon), is a tale of three friends who migrate from different villages to a city like Bombay. The animation style is inspired by the folk and traditional art and crafts of rural India and pursues the task of elevating it to a level beyond that of the kitsch and the exotic. The film is an 80 minute visual spectacle telling a story without words, cutting across boundaries of age and language. 

This is also an attempt to bring together modern animators with folk and tribal artists of india, in an effort that they interact and learn from each other, as well as create a new medium for the folk artists to express and monetize their art forms through film and subsequent merchandize. 

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