Filmmaker's `wake-up' call for voters .....POLL PANEL PICKS SIKKIM WOMAN'S MUSIC VIDEO FOR AWARENESS

RAJEEV RAVIDAS, TT, Gangtok: Another woman filmmaker from Sikkim finds herself in the spotlight after her music video for the Election Commission of India asking electorate to exercise their franchise started being aired in television channels across the country.

Mandira Chhetri, an independent filmmaker from Gangtok, is the director of the Hindi video titled Jaagona (Wake up)", which has been shot extensively in Sikkim.

She was commissioned by the ECI after being impressed with the Nepali pro- motional video that she had done for the district electoral officer of South Sikkim with an aim to educate the women voters and motivate them to vote.

"I was approached by the Sikkim election department on behalf of the ECI to redo my Nepali video for the larger Indian audience. Despite the short time on hand, we shot most of the video afresh. I also added some visuals from other parts of the country which I had shot earlier," said Mandira about her music video.

The original Nepali song and music was written by Elina Lepcha and composed Mandira Chhetri on the sets of Jaagona by Ranjit Seva of Namchi Girls' Senior Secondary School. "The Hindi translation was done by Nanda Chhetri. She also added a paragraph of her own. Aditya Pradhan of Café Live and Loud reworked the music in the Hindi video," said Mandira, who also edited the video, which is being aired as part of the ECI's "Desh ka Tihar" campaign to promote the ongoing Lok Sabha elections.

Mandira has been making documentary films and music videos since 2011. "I did a course in filmmaking at the Vishi Institute of Media Studies, Pune. Initially, I worked for a television channel in Bangalore as a news anchor before deciding to return to Sikkim," said the director, who makes films under the banner of Maark Pictures.

The young filmmaker, who has scores of films and music videos under her belt, said she chose to return home because she wanted to do something in her chosen field in Sikkim.

"The film industry is yet to develop in Sikkim, and this actually provides us an opportunity to become pioneers here," she said.

Last week, Tribeny Rai, had bagged the second prize at the Talent Campus section of the 37th Fajr International Film Festival (FIFF) 2019 in Tehran.