Swetha Basu Prasad

Makdee, Iqbal and Kotha Bangaru Lokam famed actress Swetha Basu is currently in search of new avenues. She is trying her luck in the field of film direction. Swetha is realizing her dreams through her project called Roots, a documentary that focuses on the current status of classical Indian music. The target of this documentary is youth of the nation who are currently swayed towards western culture and western music ignoring the grand cultural heritage left over by our ancestors.

Sweta Basu’s interest in this rare subject is due to her ancestral roots in the world of music. It is natural that she deals with this documentary because she herself is a sitar player.

Her work in the documentary features prominent Indian classical musicians and their thoughts throwing light on the cultural and classical value of the Indian music. Swetha Basu featured many artists in the field of music for her documentary such as AR Rahman, Dr L Subramanyam, Gulzar, Shuba Mudgal, Pandit Jasraj, Vishal Bharadwaj and others. The producer cum researcher, Swetha had burned mid night oil for this project by spending 3years just only for this project. She also explains this is the single most cause that led her not to sign even a single movie all these years through the current project.

According to Swetha the project is currently in its post-production stage and hoped to release as soon as possible. The target audience of this project is mostly youth who are ignorant about the glorious treasure of classical fine arts left over by our ancestors. Through her work Swetha wants to bring awareness among the youth about our glorious past, therefore it would be mostly screened in colleges and schools.

It all started with shooting the first shot in Andheri’s Ryan Global School on 11th May in the year 2011. Swetha Basu still remembers those initial days when everything needs to be worked from scratch where nervousness, shabbiness prevailed. The confidence in her was so strong that she believed that all well also ends well.

Shooting the documentary gave her enough time to go through some of the amazing experiences, interviews, and great filming. According to Shwetha Basu, the memories of these experiences through project will surely stay for her entire life. She feels lucky that she has got a wonderful crew who were best in their fields; one among them is Adhiraj Bose, the creative director and cinematographer.