We were lucky to catch up with Sreejith Nair recently and have shared our conversation below.
Sreejith, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
I grew up loving movies with dinosaurs, such as Disney’s Dinosaur, Jurassic Park, King Kong, Land Before Time, etc. and it was always my dream to make a movie with dinosaurs, with actors of my South Asian descent.
I came across this book, The Adventures of Padma and a Blue Dinosaur, by Vaishali Shroff. Vaishali’s book taught me all about dinosaurs discovered in India, and I was so inspired to immediately write my dream short film.
I teamed up with Vaishali to write a short film called “Rajasaur”, about a father and daughter living in prehistoric India, who must embark on a dangerous mission to return the lost egg of a Rajasaurus, India’s most dangerous dinosaur, but a much more evil creature is after the egg too.
I was a film that fulfilled everything for me, to finally make an Indian dinosaur movie. However, I was confront a major issue, COVID-19.
I was just weeks away from starting production, and everything shut down. I was so distraught thinking that I had to cancel my dream project. However, my entire cast and crew believed in it so much, to the point where they encouraged me to keep going.
We took all the COVID precautions and was able to finish the film. And I could not be prouder of it.
The film is now available here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI_uhyX7j1U&t=73s
Sreejith, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I was born and raised in Forest Park, IL, a suburb of Chicago. My family is from Kerala, the southern-most state of India. Being born and raised in Chicago by a South Indian family has definitely given me a unique perspective on the world. Growing up, I always felt like I was a part of two worlds, but never truly part of either of them. I was always the only brown kid in school, and at home I was seen as too Americanized.
The first movie I ever saw in my life was Disney’s Dinosaur, which had a huge impact on my life. I became obsessed with researching dinosaurs and prehistoric life, believing I was going to be a paleontologist, but that dream quickly faded.
My passion for dinosaurs eventually led into passion for monsters, and I started watching movies like King Kong and Godzilla, which is where I finally learned, I want to make movies. I started making short videos in high-school, which eventually led to me getting involved in short films.
I graduated from Columbia College Chicago in 2016, and then proceeded to make an Award-Winning Short Film, THE COLOR OF ME, now available on Amazon Prime. The film was an exploration of racism and colorism through a fantasy romance perspective, as the main character was a woman whose skin magically changes color into 5 different races. It was considered as the “Best Original Concept” by the Las Vegas Black Film Festival of 2019.
Shortly after completing my short film, I finally move to Los Angeles to really start my career. After 5 long years, I landed a job with ViacomCBS and was finally able to get the funding to produce my dream project about Indian dinosaurs.
I reached out to Vaishali Shroff, the author of the famed children’s book, “The Adventures of Padma and a Blue Dinosaur” as well as LA Bollywood dance teacher Sharon James and his daughter Sayanora, and we all came together with our LA-based crew to produce the first ever, Indian Dinosaur short film, RAJASAUR.
This film felt like an overall culmination of my entire life, where I finally got to combine my love of monsters and dinosaurs with my South Asian culture and I most certainly could not be prouder about it.
I hope to continue my journey in the film industry and create more of a space for South Asians in the Sci-Fi, Fantasy, & Horror genres.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Society needs to give new stories a chance. I come from a culture with so much mythology and history that is never explored. We have reached a point in the industry where we are seeing the same stories over and over again and nothing feels original anymore. All the content we have praised 10 years ago, has gotten stale now. I have so many stories to tell that are not based on any existing IP, that I want to share with the world.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
My short film, Rajasaur, was shot during the COVID-19 pandemic. So many people tried to convince me to pull the plug on the project. But I still firmly believed in it and wasn’t going to let it go. If it wasn’t for the support of my cast and crew, we never would have finished it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sreejithsnair.com/
- Instagram: @sreejithnair94
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sreejith.nair.3194/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sreejithnair94/
- Twitter: @sreejithnair94
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/sreejithnair94/