Saraswat Sadhakसारस्वत साधक
A documentary on Padma Shri Krishna Bihari Mishra, commissioned by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA).
The brief
IGNCA commissioned a documentary on Padma Shri Krishna Bihari Mishra, to document and preserve his life, his writing and his contribution to Hindi literature and journalism.
The film was developed over a series of meetings with IGNCA. It brings together Mishra’s own account, archive material, and the people connected to his life and work.
Our approach
After the brief, we began by contacting people and collecting what we could about Mishra. What was available online was a start. We then went to the IGNCA library, spoke to a scholar in Delhi and made contacts at Banaras Hindu University (BHU). Through them we learned less-known things about him, and those became the basis of the film.
The shoot
We shot about 40 minutes with Mishra in all. The rest of the film comes from the people around him, including his family, friends and other figures from his life and work such as the Governor of West Bengal, and from BHU’s archive on Hindi literature, including Hazari Prasad Dwivedi. It was shot across Delhi, Kolkata and Varanasi.
What Aviral Productions handled
Aviral Productions took the film from the first meeting to delivery: direction, shooting and interviews, story flow and scripting with writers, editing with the archive worked into the interviews, graphics and animation, sound and colour. It was shot in 4K.
Broadcast
The 27 minute documentary aired on Lok Sabha TV in March 2018. It was delivered to IGNCA, which also used it in its digital content.
In the press
Dainik Jagran, Yuva Shakti and Prabhat Khabar announced the programme in Kolkata and credited the direction of the film to Abhishek Chaturvedi.
Status
Delivered.