Some people look up at role models and grow up to be leaders. However, not everyone is lucky enough to have one just around them. If that’s the case, “You should become your own role model, lead the way so that people can follow you and have access to tough peaks,” says Rama Pandey, Managing Director, Montage Films, India.
Pandey, a well-known film and theatre personality, and an author. She has a cultural persona and has been an activist for many years.
She owns Montage Films and believes in contemporary cinema and expressing meaningful art. At the Women Economic Forum, 2017, Pandey said, “I was one of the 7 siblings in my house, the eldest of them, in Jaipur. I realised early in my childhood that if a girl is born she would be educated only till the point she agrees to marry. I was very fearless and an ardent debater all my life. When I realised I was driven towards theatre, I immediately took training in television and radio. I could have been a news anchor with many leading news production houses but I chose a difficult path of making films and today I hold more than 2,000 films to my credit.”
Montage Films is a company that makes contemporary films apart from being attached to literary works, be it books, poems, events, films, television, etc.
The small town girl rose to international heights who bought laurels to the country by becoming the roaming cultural ambassador of India in 1971 at a very early age. She has been a woman crusader who has been trying to preserve India’s rich heritage and culture. The serial ‘Jane Apna Desh’ (Know Your Country) is based on this philosophy which is running for the last 15 years on Doordarshan Rajasthan having completed more than 250 episodes.
When asked about what keeps her going, she says, “If there is fire in your belly, if your dreams don’t let you sleep, you must know that you have very less time to make an impact. I believe even if your dreams break, keep calm; as the sunflowers will rise the next after the night has gone.”
She is a champion in making serials and films on issues related to youth and women which especially helps the masses to get solutions on social causes. Early experience in film includes acting in 8 art films and 3 television films and directing 4 films, including a 35mm feature film for the films division which won an award from the Indian Institute of Mass Communications.
The entrepreneur and filmmaker revealed her expectations from the Modi government regarding the state of filmmaking sector in our country. She said, “The national recognition is now being given to startups, but we have been longer waiting for our due rights to be delivered by the government. If they don’t support us now, a potentially flourishing industry will lose its charm. I am against private colleges teaching cinematography or filmmaking, as they extract wealth from students and the state of the students passing out is terrible. There is no work for them. I don’t want their parents to suffer.”
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Soumya is a young writer and journalist, with bachelors in Multimedia and Mass Communication. She is an alumini of the Asian College of Journalism, and finds politics and sustainability intriguing beats to work with.
