Game-changing documentary filmmaker
O Indrani Kopal’s journey to become a documentary filmmaker is as engaging as her work
DANCE features prominently in documentary filmmaker Indrani Kopal’s works. Whether it is her short film, The Game Changer (about Susan Slotnick’s work with inmates of a correctional facility; the film won her the Best Student Documentary award at the American Pavilion’s Emerging Filmmaker Showcase at the Cannes Film Festival), its full-length documentary follow-up, Incarcerated Rhythm (about six inmates after their release) or Teacher (a homage to her dance teacher, Shrimathi Indira Manikam), dance is depicted as something that heals.
“My background is in Indian classical dance. I took it up when I was 21, which was considered very old. Most dancers start when they are three. I remember my first class, together with students of three and four years old. I was losing hair, had a lot of self-esteem issues and was going through depression. I was losing blood… a hormonal imbalance,” recalled Indrani.
Initially, she enrolled at the Tanjai Kamala Indira Dance School to learn to play the veena but the principal told her to take up dance as she felt it would be good for her.
Within a year, she was ready for her first public recital and her teacher got her all decked up. “I felt like a princess. It changed my life entirely.”
Indrani, who was working in a local private university’s film lab at that time, spread her wings and ended up modelling and even going in front of the camera as a presenter and producer for a now defunct TV company. Later, she joined Malaysiakini, where she produced videos for the Tamil language market.
A Fullbright scholar, Indrani now balances her time between working in the university where she teaches students about filmmaking and doing projects for her own company.
She helped organise the recent inaugural Taylor’s University Film Festival 2019 which other universities and independent filmmakers were invited to take part in. Not only did participants get a chance to showcase their works, but they could also attend workshops by established filmmakers and “walk the red carpet”, just like they would if they had entered a renowned film festival.
Indrani said she discovered documentaries when she was a journalist with Malaysiakini (2006 to 2012).
“In the news media, you have to be objective. The more stories I did and the more issues I covered, I realised I wanted to take a stand. No university in Malaysia offered documentary programmes full time, so I had to go to the US to do it,” she explained.
A visiting professor from Georgetown University who was with her and her colleague when they were shooting a video on the plight of the people in Kampung Buah Pala, Penang, opened her eyes to other possibilities.
“She said ‘I like how you are telling this story’ and asked if I wanted to learn more. She knew how underexposed I was to the whole process of telling stories. She saw a future for me that even I myself couldn’t see then,” said Indrani.
She applied for a six-year fellowship to study in the US. “It opened the floodgates for me and showed me what I was missing.”
She had a few topics that she wanted to cover for her thesis, but during an excursion to the more rural parts of New York where the poor minorities lived, she found that the social issues there were very much similar to that in Malaysia.
In Queens, she visited the Creedmoor Psychiatric Center where patients were encouraged to explore their artistic side as part of the therapy. Their work was also displayed nearby.
“I learned about rehabilitation through art and it was an eye-opener for me,” she said. “The idea stayed with me and in the spring of 2013, I looked up rehabilitation and dance on the internet. Only one article popped up. It was by Susan Slotnick, a dancer and choreographer who was teaching dance to inmates at the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in New York.”
So began a journey for Indrani which ended with her documentaries, The Game Changer and Incarcerated Rhythm. Her journey continues and now, you can add teaching to her list. Just as she has learnt from others, she is imparting her wisdom to her students.