Tezpur, Assam, is a sprawling town tucked between the Kameng and Brahmaputra rivers in India’s Northeast region. Fed by the stoic Eastern Himalaya Mountain Range, the slow-flowing spring rivers give Tezpur a charming, leisurely energy. I was greeted by smiles, affirming head-nods, and helpful hands that helped move my film gear from the bus to the auto. And while we bumbled down the road to my homestay, I couldn’t help but notice coy grins on all the dogs, each enjoying the cool morning shade under a banana tree.
I traveled here to visit GreenHub, an organization that provides a variety of filmmaking and environmental conservation fellowship opportunities for youth from indigenous communities, economically disadvantaged backgrounds, and remote and rural areas. The Northeast India program was their flagship, but they have since spread to Madhya Pradesh for their Central India program, and the Western Himalayas Region for Northwest India.
Their original program is a one-year residential filmmaking fellowship. Over the course of that year, over twenty selected fellows live together in the dorms of the GreenHub office, learn the fundamentals of filmmaking, go on assignment with other NGO’s, and decide on personal initiatives about which they might make their films. Much of their early training revolves around the environment, using the local flora and fauna of Assam as subjects. Many threatened or endangered species receive the bulk of the attention, and in turn, this footage is often used to track and survey these populations by local ecologists. The environmental theme of their one-year journey does not end there, as many of their film projects revolve around human interaction with wildlife.
My placement for the Banyan Impact Fellowship is with Synergy Sansthan, an NGO in Madhya Pradesh that offers a variety of fellowship programs for youth in urban, semi-urban, rural, and tribal areas. Part of its work also includes establishing Youth Resource Centers across the state and assisting groups in founding or formalizing their own NGOs. My project deals directly in communications, working to modify their approach, conducting training workshops with their staff, and creating documentaries and other materials that highlight the work Synergy Sansthan does.
While they are about to celebrate their 20th anniversary as an organization, my supervisor admittedly told me that communications is something they haven’t invested much time in for the first 17 years since their founding – leaving my work cut out for me.
Together, members of Synergy Sansthan and I have spent most of our time finding the gaps between their communication strategy and the audience they are striving to achieve. We decided that pivoting to a narrative-based strategy (and departing from a data-driven approach) will help put human faces on the human issues they are working towards solving. Creating these short documentaries would be critical in doing that.
This line of reasoning led me to GreenHub, over 2000 kilometers away, nestled in the far corner of this country, to answer this question:
What if there was a group that harnessed that same narrative approach, but instead trained filmmakers to help tell those stories?
GreenHub would be that organization – one that combines the color of narrative storytelling with the blank canvas of the development sector.
Sumit Sisodiya is the Creative and Technical Lead at GreenHub and has been with the NGO for over 10 years. He’s helped develop the curriculum, assisted fellows with hundreds of films, and knows just what it takes to train someone to think like a filmmaker.
After introductions with GreenHub’s staff, Sumit and I sat together discussing the details of their process. He explained that when the fellows first arrive, their passion drives them to learn and explore. Many of them are dedicated to either preserving their specific culture’s identity or protecting the environment through filmmaking.
But while they are eager to engage, Sumit explained to me that “they all reach for a long telephoto zoom lens for their first interviews, nervous to conduct an interview up close.” But by the end, they learn to sculpt their stories through building relationships, identifying their characters, and exploring story structure.
The first 3 months of the program are an intensive filmmaking crash-course, learning all the different phases of production, from camera work to archiving, to interview strategies and social and ecological issues of the Northeast. Then the fellows are sent to do a series of internships on assignment with local NGOs, working in tandem with the organization to capture the work that they do in their communities.
After a series of back-and-forth travel between GreenHub and each organization, along with a handful of critiques and reviews, the fellows continue working on that film and then have the opportunity to work on their own project in a similar thematic area. After one year of intense field-shooting and editing, they leave the program with their own self-shot, self-directed, and self-edited film.
I asked Sumit how the fellows are after completing their journey, and he laughed.
“When they finish, they are more confused. Yes, now they are filmmakers. But they suddenly feel more responsibility and see much more work to be done. We don’t produce filmmakers; we aim to produce individuals who know what they want to do next.”
The following day, I met with the current batch of GreenHub fellows, fresh from a two-week assignment in the field with their partner NGOs. They ranged from 20-40 years old and were all too eager to sit with me and discuss filmmaking.
I did a presentation on identifying your film’s characters, finding personal or societal stakes, describing the conflict, and making observations. In addition, we reviewed some traditional story maps, and I did a demonstration on how I build my camera, and let them practice with my personal gear.
Following the presentation, we did a small activity on telling a story in three shots. Each group had to use one wide shot, one medium shot, and one close-up – telling a story with no words. This exercise is to practice gathering meaningful footage when in the field, using images to convey a feeling to your audience, rather than explaining how they should feel.
My visit with GreenHub was an incredibly inspiring time. I remembered just how impactful filmmaking can be, on both a filmmaker learning the craft and for a community finding their voice. My journey as a Banyan Impact Fellow feels similar. For years, I worked freelance as a member of a large production staff, making my short films and documentaries when I could. But it wasn’t until I traveled across oceans and embedded myself in a tight-knit community in central India that I remembered the true feeling of storytelling. It was a gift to sit with first-time filmmakers and feel their passion, and it is safe to say I learned a thing or two from them as well.
Below is a brief video that captures my time with GreenHub, filmed mostly by the fellows).
