“I don’t want to be an acrobat; I want to be a dancer. Call me dancer,” says the protagonist Manish Chauhan in Call Me Dancer, directed by Leslie Shampaine and Pip Gilmour, which will be screened at the NCPA this month.

The documentary traces the journey of a Mumbai based street dancer who defies the odds to live his dream. A story of determination, hard work and talent blossoming under able mentorship, the film has a universal quality to it. It is no wonder then that Call Me Dancer has received acclaim and won several awards in festivals around the world including audience awards at the Vancouver International Film Festival, Berkshire International Film Festival, San Francisco Dance Film Festival and Tasveer South Asian Film Festival and has been voted best documentary at the River to River Florence Indian Film Festival and Reheboth Beach Independent Film Festival. It has had about 100 screenings internationally, including some theatrical releases. The film is now trying to find new audiences in India.

Israeli-American ballet teacher Yahuda Maor, who has been preparing gifted dancers from less privileged sections of India for programmes in international dance schools as part of Ashley Lobo’s Danceworx academy, mentored the protagonist in the film. He reached out to Washington-based filmmaker Shampaine, who has been a ballet dancer herself, and told her about the intriguing journeys of some of his students towards a career in dance that could make for a good film. “I saw a beautiful story here and I wanted to convey why people with a passion do what they do in an art form like dance, which is a difficult career choice. I felt that I could bring an insider’s point of view to the film,” she says, adding. “It was very hard for me to make this film because it was the first one I directed after I retired from the stage.” There were other challenges too, including raising money for the project. “It took me a long time to make the film. I was with the character for five years,” Shampaine tells us.

In India, Call Me Dancer has had few screenings. There was one in Kolkata, on International Dance Day, where the dancers in the audience were completely taken with the film. Manish’s struggles were their struggles, his barriers, their own. The f ilm will be screened for the first time in Mumbai at the NCPA and the cast and crew, including Shampaine and co-director Gilmour, who will be present at the screening, are eager to see how the city’s audience responds to it.

Producer Jitin Hingorani says, “The needle is shifting. There are so many parents who come up to us and say that they never thought their children could have a career in dance. But after watching the film they feel confident of letting them pursue it.”

Hingorani approached filmmakers Priti Chandriani, Lygia Mathews and Veena Bakshi, founders of Cinema Collective, who started the Reality Check series in 2017 upon the invitation of the NCPA to curate and screen documentary films every month followed by a discussion. The filmmakers back then, Chandriani recalls, were part of the Indian Documentary Producers Association.

Making documentaries is an important craft but also a difficult one. From the conception of an idea to its culmination, the struggle persists at all stages. First to find funds to back the project, then to screen the film and channelise it to the right markets and audiences, the process is a long labour of love in which several years could pass between research and screening.

The team at Reality Check believes that the NCPA has been instrumental in giving a new lease of life to f ilms which otherwise would not get a space to be screened. Bakshi says, “If this platform at the NCPA did not exist, one would have to wait for film festivals. Even from a technical perspective, most of the f ilmmakers who bring their films to us are very pleased with the results. It is a good venue and a technically sound space. The NCPA looks after its infrastructure very well.” Hingorani remarks that the line-up of films presented at the NCPA is of the quality that one would see around the world. “Having the gravitas of a reputed art organisation’s name attached to a screening really opens doors for documentary films. The fact that the NCPA has curated our film is a feather in our cap. We are using this screening as the launch for our theatrical release which will be around Diwali,” he says.

Over the years, there has been a significant change in the quality of films, and this has also attracted new audiences. Bakshi notes, “Earlier, it was usually the older generation who came to see the films but we now get many requests from young people. They are keen to watch films based on issues, heritage, environment or other aspects.” The screenings have created a stream of regular filmgoers and there has been a gradual increase in viewership. Mathews points out, “On some occasions, we have had to use the Godrej Dance Theatre, which has a larger capacity. Sometimes we have done two screenings in one day.” 

Siddika Chinwala, a regular at the NCPA, points out the dearth of spaces in the city to watch films on a variety of subjects. She says, “I am at the NCPA at least twice a week. Their selection of films is outstanding. The directors are brilliant; they are young people and smart. I really enjoyed watching Bhangaar: Obsolete and Kaifinama recently.”

As these conversations were taking place, Payal Kapadia’s film All We Imagine as Light was awarded the Grand Prix at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, a first for an Indian filmmaker. All art is inspired by life, but as the borders between fact and fiction merge, a third language of cinema—much like the New Journalism of the 1960s—that lies somewhere between documentaries and feature films is being spoken. There seems to be an audience for this vast universe of cinema and there is hope that more spaces like the NCPA will emerge to satiate this need in the birthplace of Indian film industry. 

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Pull Quote: Call Me Dancer traces the journey of a Mumbai-based street dancer who defies the odds to live his dream. The Reality Check team believes that the NCPA has been instrumental in giving a new lease of life to films such as this, which otherwise would not get a space to be screened.