From the Personal to the Political, Goa Panel Offers Divergent Opinions on Which Stories Can Travel

variety.com:

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Lucy Walker began a Saturday panel discussion on stories that travel by describing her own wanderlust backstory. “As a girl growing up in London, I didn’t have enough money to travel.

And I didn’t think being on vacation was the most interesting way to see the world. And yet I really wanted to travel and work and understand people, so I’ve designed myself a job making documentary films where I get to travel the world,” said Walker, who arrived at the International Film Festival of India in Goa having earlier this week won another award, in New York, for her Nepal-set tale “Mountain Queen: The Summits of Lakhpa Sherpa.” “When I make a film, I always have a question, one that I’ll drop everything to find out about: what’s going to happen?

Will they be able to climb the mountain? Will they be okay?,” Walker continued. She was speaking on a panel alongside writer and commissioner Farrukh Dhondy, producer Anna Saura, actor Tannishtha Chatterjee, actor and activist Vani Tripathi Tikoo and veteran producer Bobby Bedi.

After suggesting that most filmmakers in India do not think outside of national borders, Bedi sought to break down the components of frontier-crossing narratives into content and structure. “Some stories will always have an international audience, those of displacement, romance, close family relations – we all understand these, [and which are epitomized by] Mira Nair’s ‘Monsoon Wedding.’ Then there is the form,” Bedi suggested.