Diverse Voices
‘Diverse Voices’ is a project developed by Wellington UNESCO City of Film to uncover some of the region’s diverse storytelling talent.
Audio: My name is Aditya Parige. I go by Adi.
Visual: Aditya B. Parige (Adi) sits in a dark room with studio lights on him. He is wearing a grey hat, a bandana around his neck, and dark grey clothing. Throughout the interview, we switch from one camera angle to another, one where the camera is zoomed to focus on his chest upward, with his head being the focal point. The other is zoomed out more, showing a table with interesting objects on it, such as a pink spiky ball, teapots, oranges, and candles.
Audio: I was born in New Zealand, in Wellington. Before I was a year old, we moved to California. Recently, I’ve moved back to Wellington. My heritage is from India, a state called Andhra Pradesh. My parents are immigrants who kind of shuttled in different places around the world.
And I grew up in a really rich Indian American community in Northern California, in the late 90s, early 2000s. And that kind of foundation of growing up in a stronghold of the diaspora, of the Indian diaspora, had a big impact on me.
And now I’m kind of in a space where the voice that I’m trying to push forward as an artist is central to how I grew up, which is amidst a diaspora story. I’m currently in the process of making a film called ‘The Lascar’.
Visual:
Text on screen: 1799 Aotearoa.
Audio: It’s about a sealing gang in Aotearoa, in the late 1700s. It’s a little-known fact that amongst the first sealing gangs to come to New Zealand were hundreds of Indian sailors known as Lascars. Really, these guys kind of, were kind of hidden in a corner of the history.
While they weren’t here to settle, their time in New Zealand was really fascinating because they worked closely with Europeans, but they also, you know, in a lot of situations, spearheaded the relationships with local iwi, depending on where they were trying to hunt seals.
So yeah, that kind of, like, cross-way of these three different cultures is really fascinating to me as a filmmaker.
Something I really thought about hard was like, how do I get people from the community that I’m representing to put into the film?
I got money from three different Indian organisations around Aotearoa, which wasn’t easy, but I’m really, it’s one of the things I’m really proud about with the film.
It’s the High Commission, it’s the New Zealand Indian Central Association, the Auckland Tamil Association who came together and basically gave me an entire third of my budget purely because they believed in the idea and they believed in me.
And that’s not, like, you don’t see the Indian High Commission logo before films. Like, you’ll see that in other countries, the New Zealand Film Commission, you’ll see different commissions around the world, but you never really see that. And I’m really proud of that fact.
Learning about diversity and inclusion in regard to my film was the fact that I really wanted a central point of the film to be this culture clash between these three different cultures. And that really got me focusing. Instead of indigenous cinema, like maybe there’s something after that? Like migrant cinema and intersectional cinema?
And that’s kind of where I’m really interested in — I think ‘The Lascar’ is an intersectional film. You’re talking about multiple cultures, multiple sexual identities even, coming into play and seeing how that... It’s kind of messy, but I think that’s fun.
Visual:
A clip of card paper shows, written on it the credits. These are written below:
Commonly known as Adi, he is one of six different innovators from six different backgrounds from within the Wellington region interviewed for a documentary about diversity, innovation, and sustainability in Wellington’s film industry.
The Wellington UNESCO City of Film project called ‘Diverse Voices: Making Screen Work Different’ is directed and produced by Pachali Brewster, with help from facilitators and Victoria University of Wellington’s Missy Molloy and Raqi Syed.
Material for the documentary has come from a hui featuring six local storytelling talents, including Adi, around the central question: “How can we make screen work different?”
The New Zealand-born Indian American director, screenwriter, editor and producer developed an interest in film-making from a young age through his love for old-school Bollywood, Westerns and 70s and 90s American cinema.
Having grown up in an Indian community in northern California, Adi spent his late teens and early 20s aimlessly meandering through various parts of the globe.
It’s those experiences abroad that exposed him to the diverse strongholds of the Indian diaspora which he says has had a big impact on him.
“Now I’m in a space where the voice I’m trying to push forward as an artist is central to how I grew up, which is amidst a diaspora story.”
Unable to render element
Adi’s long-term goal is to build a unique filmography that focuses on fictional narratives based on immigrant South Asian communities of the past, present, and future.
His film called ‘The Lascar’, is a 25-minute psychological drama set in 1799 that centres around the forgotten Indian sailors of Aotearoa’s original seal-hunting gangs.
Breaking the tradition of bi-cultural narratives, ‘The Lascar’ is about a messy but profound power struggle between the British, Indians and Māori during New Zealand’s early days of colonialism. After coming up with the idea while stuck indoors during New York’s first lockdown, Adi took a risk. He left his life in America to return to New Zealand after 25 years to make the film.
Based in Wellington, it became his thesis project for his Masters in Film at Victoria University.
Adi and his team have plans to submit the film to international festivals.
He hopes people, both in New Zealand and around the globe, will come to learn of this largely forgotten history of early Indian arrival in the Antipodes.
For updates on Adi’s film, The Lascar, you can follow their Instagram @thelascarfilm.
‘Diverse Voices’ is a project developed by Wellington UNESCO City of Film to uncover some of the region’s diverse storytelling talent.
The inspiration to become a filmmaker stems from Oriwa’s upbringing in the small town of Ōtaki just north of Wellington.
The work of independent filmmaker Kathleen has centred on politically challenging stories that reflect real lives and uplift communities.
Screenwriter Casey is shifting their focus to help Wellington-based creators build financially viable and creatively satisfying careers.
Laura is using her first-generation background to bring an outsider’s perspective to narratives in the games space.
Jade turned to film-making after taking time out to rediscover herself and embrace her Samoan heritage.