‘DOCUMENTARY FILM SPACE HAS A HUGE POTENTIAL’

After completing his mechanical engineering studies, Kovid Mittal turned to modelling and acting. The youngster feels that one should follow instinct and passion and things automatically fall into place.

“My father was in the India Air Force and pursuing engineering was my choice. But, during my college days, I started modelling and soon won Mr Youth Bangalore pageant. It became my passion, so I convinced my parents and since then it has been a decade and I have never been out of work. Even during the pandemic, I was doing short films and documentaries,” says the model-turned-actor.

Last year, he shot for a 90minute documentary, 3687 Metres Black Peak, which bagged many awards. “This is one of the highest peaks (20,960 feet) in Uttarakhand and we scaled it in a record time of six days. It got the cinematography award at the

Canadian Film Festival 2021 and was the official selection at the Dada Saheb Phalke Awards 2021. Next, we will do two sequels to it — first 23,212 Ft Mount Satopanth in India followed by Mt Everest. It’s for the first time a mountaineering documentary of this scale is being done in our country,” says the karate black belt and national-level swimmer.

Mittal feels documentary space is set to become big. “In India, we need to go big on documentaries. Free Solo, based on rock climbing, went on to win an Academy Award in 2019. So, I feel, films, serials and web-series are fine but documentary films and short films have a huge potential and are going to be the next big things. The audience is relating with realistic space and if we look at OTT platforms, so many documentaries are getting great viewership.”

He has done 12 short films as well. “My last short was Kanke Mental Asylum which is in the horror genre. It’s again a part of a three-part series. I will soon make an OTT series debut which is based on Sunil Sihag’s novel Day Turns Dark which stars actor Rahul Dev as my mentor. We will be shooting it on the border of Rajasthan in October.”

The actor has also featured in Babbu Maan song Meri Jannat, Altaf Sayeed and Omar

Inayat’s song Closed Eyes: Kahan Tum Kho Gaye and will be seen in Awara Hu Banjar Hu which is an ode to Indian Air Force officers. Besides, he is also directing documentaries, ads and short films.

Throwing light on his first name, he says, “Kovid is a Sanskrit name derived from Hanuman Chalisa which means wisdom. After the pandemic, I started getting random messages if my name was inspired by Covid-19 and then I educated people about its relevance (laughs).”

People often ask me if my name is inspired by Covid-19

MITTAL, KOVID Actor-model