Beenu Rajpoot is a renowned documentary filmmaker based in Delhi. From last one and a half decade she is serving in the Indian cinema through her documentary films. Making a documentary is a two-way street. Respect, trust, and willingness are qualities that are built, not forced.
Her adventure with the camera started when she was learning Kathak in Kathak Guru (Padhamshri) Shovana Narayan’s Asavari centre for Kathak in Delhi. She was very fascinated from Indian –art- culture and literature from the beginning. When she saw the live dance performances on stage for the first time, at that point she thought of filming them so that she can preserve them for long period of time. But she was not aware of camera techniques.
Then she joined Mr. O P Sharma’s classes of Photography and Filming. He is the god of Photography in India. Mr. O. P. Sharma (born 1937) is an Indian photographer based in Delhi. He heads the photography department of Triveni Kala Sangam. Earlier, he taught photography at Modern School for many years. She learnt the basics of photography and filming from him. She feels very grateful to have a guru like him.
One day on the occasion of world photography day (19th August) she met Mike Pandey, India’s Bear Grylls. He is a filmmaker specializing in films about wildlife and the environment. He has won over 300 awards for his work to spread awareness about biodiversity and species conservation, including helping conserve and protect key species such as whale sharks, elephants, tigers, vultures and horseshoe crabs. He saw her documentary story in photographs. He was highly impressed by her compositions, lightings, grids, leading lights in the exhibition. He asked her to join his company to assist him as an assistant director. She took him lightly that he must be joking or pulling my leg. But after a few days he called me up and said Rajpoot where are you? You come to my studio immediately! She went there and he again repeats the same thing. At that point she decided to come into films and assisted him for a project.
She have made around 25 plus documentary films till date and many more are in the pipeline. But every step she takes in this profession, she learned many new things like an inquisitive student. Every documentary is based on different topics. Like film ‘Born to Dance: Shovana Narayan’ is a biopic of Kathak dancer, ‘Wall of Valour: A tribute to martyrs’ documentary film is based on CAPFs and State police forces, how they work and live for us, die for the nation; ‘Beyond belief: The real myth busters’ documentary showcases the inspiring success stories of visually impaired people. Film “Banaras ‘Kaa’ba – E – Hindostan: Ghalib’s Ode to Banaras” is based on the Charagh –E-Dair farsi masnavi which is written by Mirza Ghalib in 1828, this masnavi revealed his feelings about the sacred city ‘Banaras’. ‘Suran Di Malika: Surinder Kaur’ is a Punjabi documentary film, which is a biography of Bibi Surinder Kaur.
Her new upcoming documentary film ‘Bhakt Bhagwat – A tiny lover of Lord Krishna’ is totally different of other projects, it is based on logical spiritual aspects and on the other hand my upcoming film ‘The Sparkling Scientist’ is entirely different concept. In this project she is jumping into scientist world which is new to me. So she love to work on different topics and concepts, which gives new dimensions to your mind and that helps to expand your creativity.
See, documentary films are not everyone’s cup of tea. Nobody wants to research and find out the true facts. But one thing is for sure that documentaries are not dying at all.
In this era of fake news we can see the truth only in documentary films. That is also a fact that it is very tough to make documentaries, because unlike films there are no retakes in them as you cannot replicate. But documentary films too have their bright future, no doubt in it.
A good documentary film demands time and research. She has seen many youngsters who are making the documentary film in a day. But they don’t think about the 5W and 1H principles that she had learnt in the Mass Media. Every documentary demands good home work, good research work, effective script then the field work starts. It takes her a year to finish most of the films; some have even taken 2 years to finish. Actually many people don’t go for the professional training and education in the field of films. Aaj jis ke haath main bhi camera hai who apne aap ko filmmaker kehta hai; Which is not good for the future of documentary films.