The World in her Hands

She has made it big in filmmaking now, although her entrance into Digital Journalism started with a humble beginning.  Sophy Lasuh recalls her one year of education on Mass Communication in Delhi as a difficult time having lost her father that year. She applied for internship half-way through the course and was already offered a job which she took it without second thoughts considering the financial situation at home and that’s when she started working as an Assistant Producer at Miditech Pvt. Ltd in Delhi.
Since then, there has been no turning back for this passionate young cinematographer. It was also her hard efforts that earned her a double raise from the first month itself and she went on to leave traces of her filmmaking skills as Associate and Assistant Producers for MTV Asia, BBC Wheels, Season Eleven and the Indian Footprints, a travel show which was bought by around 27 Channels. It was also picked up to be shown during the International Television and Film Festival held in Cologne, Germany December 2002. Interestingly, she was also allowed to write her exams and she managed to finish her one year course alongside. Somehow, she decided to come back home essentially to spend more time with her mother and that’s when the ‘Cuehue Production House’ in Kohima came into being. This, she says, was started with Sesino Yhoshü where they also did a lot of productions for the Government of Nagaland. However, she says she felt very saturated at one point of time as she wanted to study more and left home again to pursue a 3-month course on Creative Writing from the British Council Delhi. Her quest for her interest in the field of cinematography led her to another greater venture and so she became a part of the prestigious Edinburgh College of Art, Scotland. It’s also a matter of pride that all the three colleges she applied for selected her, but Scotland was her ultimate choice, so she went on to complete her Masters in Film and Television sometime at the end of last year. She is now, the Editor of the College, a job that was offered her even before she graduated.

Her Graduation Film ‘Children of Silence’, a hard-hitting documentary film about the atrocities committed in Nagaland under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act of 1958 and focusing on the small village of Oinam which endured three months of brutal killings, rape, torture and slave labour in 1987, was very well received that right after the screening, she got a producer from the Scottish Documentary Institute. The 23 minute-documentary film that has been picked for distribution will be developed into a feature film of 53 minutes story very shortly. It may be of interest to many that her film ‘Children of Silence’ was shortlisted for the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Awards. It was among the five best, selected by her college for BAFTA. On the other hand, for her second film called ‘Aliya’, she sent her idea for pitching and it is also one of the impressive 30 ideas that were selected from all the over the world by the Sheffield International Film Festival (SIFF). And it is worth noting that the Director of the SIFF has offered her the money to develop the film and she says negotiations are taking place right now, which is definitely another feather to her cap. Sophy is also an excellent photographer and she says this keen interest developed while she was studying and being taught about the concepts of filmmaking. She believes that photography has helped her a lot in framing her stories. She also says there are a lot of people behind the scenes who believed in her and adds “I’ll always be grateful to them, they know who they are” while also making a mention of state Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio, who as part of ‘Year of Youth Empowerment’, generously sponsored her stay in the United Kingdom and invested in her education when she approached the Government for financial assistance. Making a note of unemployment in Nagaland, she feels that there are many talents here and she does admit that she felt intimidated when she joined the college in the UK because she thought people knew a lot. She laments that “we don’t have anyone to guide us”. However, she feels fortunate to have learnt from teachers abroad who always gave them the chance to prove themselves. Sharing her own experience about people telling her “you’re a fool to be here (Nagaland) where there are no opportunities” and saying she is investing in the wrong place, she answers it the way she feels and says “everything depends on how you find your opportunity and how you create it”. To this she adds, “We have grown so much not just as film makers, but we have discovered more of ourselves, our own strength, our culture and heritage and the medium of film and have come to learn more about Nagaland”. “If we don’t do something first, don’t point your fingers to the government, I’m sure the Government also gets fed up. We can’t just approach the government without doing anything ourselves” she states firmly. She definitely has plans to come back to Nagaland and what she really wants to focus on is to outsource stories from Nagaland and export them through the medium of television but, of course, she is now busy collaborating with international productions for better visions in the future. One thing she wishes to convey is that ‘we are unique and exotic people’. This, she has taken an advantage of as a minority even in the UK despite the fact that people tend to look us down on the basis of belonging to a tribal background from India, that too from a place where no one has heard about but she is proud of her rich inheritance. Whatever projects she undertakes in Filmmaking will either be about Nagaland or North East, she says. And although she belongs to the first Generation Filmmakers in Nagaland, she is definitely holding the world in her hands. The passion in her is indisputable and she is without doubt, one of the finest Naga women that many would like to recall her as. Sophy Lasuh is the young best Cinematographer there is in the state.