Q Alex Deleon. "Aryan Saga" ideals with a most unusual subject - Master Race sex tourism in the high Himalayas. One young lady here said she thought it was just too weird to be true and must be a some kind of put-on like Orson Welles' "F for Fake". What attracted you to this subject.
ASanjeev Sivan. Well, first of all, there's nothing fake about it. What you see is what you get. This is actually going on. I read a newspaper article about it and decided to go there and see for myself.
Q. It looks like you had to cover a lot of territory to get the background interviews you needed. How did you get Professor Gartler of Seattle to appear in the film.
A. It was a pure coincidence. I met him through his niece, Maryna, who works for the Seattle film festival back in 2000, when I went there to pick pick up an award for my brother Santosh, who couldn't attend. I knew that he was a leading authority on the genetics of race and he happened to be attending an international conference on genetics in South India when I was preparing my film, so it just came together. Given the topic of the film he was more than willing to chip in with his expert testimony, which turned out to be a key section of the film pulling it all together.
Sanjeev Sivan with Selvaggia Velo the Festival Director
Q. The festival brochure says you come from a filmmaking family. Who are the others?
A. My two older brothers. Santosh is a director and a highly experienced cameraman. He was the DOP on most of my own films as well as such classics as Mani Ratman's famous Hindi terrorism film "Dil Se" (From the heart) with Shah Rukh Khan. He also directed "Asoka" with Shah Rukh and Kareena Kapoor. My other brother Sangeeth has directed many Bollywood films including the big musical hit „Apna Sapna Money Money" (2004). Since we are from Kerala some of their films have been in the Malayalam language.
Q. Are you planning to make any feature films?
A. I already did one, "Aparichitan" (The Stranger) in 2004. It was a Malayalam language horror flick with young people and it was the biggest box office hit ever in Kerala state. I also did a TV special for NHK in Japan entitled "Life After Death" which is about land grabbers in India who have people officially declared dead so they can acquire property using their names. One guy has been going to court for years trying to prove that he's still alive. You might call it a very black comedy but it's all true.
Q. Well, you seem to have a flair for provocative subjects. What do you have up your sleeve next?
A. I have a feature in the works called „Slum God Mathematicians". This is about street urchins in Bombay, who even though they have no schooling, they actually have to devise very sophisticated mathematical operations just to pull off the deals and scams that get them through life. The validity of their math has been vouched for by a PhD university mathematician. Í guess i just like off-the-wall subjects like this.
Alex: Well,with a title like that you can't go wrong!
14.12.2009 | Editor's blog
Cat. : Alex Deleon Asoka Bombay cameraman Dil Se Director F for Fake F for Fake Family Relation Gartler India Japan Kareena Kapoor Kerala Mani Ratman Maryna mathematician Orson Welles Person Career Person Location professor Sangeeth Sanjeev Sivan SANJEEV SIVAN Santosh Seattle Shah Rukh Shah Rukh Khan South India the Seattle Film Festival PEOPLE