Singer Sona Mohapatra’s talks about her documentary, Shut Up Sona

Gurnaaz Kaur

“I felt I was pushed against a corner in the industry. I was not getting to sing as often as I deserved to. And sitting around and waiting for others to give me an opportunity is not me,” these thoughts and emotions became a breakthrough for Sona Mohapatra, who then decided to make a documentary and Shut Up Sona was born.

It recently won the Best Documentary Film Award at the prestigious Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. Some months back, it got the National Award for Best Editing. The film that premiered at MAMI in 2019 and won a critics guild award , has gone on to make a big impact at the Rotterdam Festival, Gotteborg Festival, even winning a special mention at Impact Docs Award.

Unapologetic to speak up and make her voice heard, this singer is excited about her film travelling far and wide to the best of international festival. “Winning the IFFM was particularly like a beautiful validation by the Indian diaspora. When you get an Indian award or an award like IFFM, it shows your own people, are celebrating your journey and what you have to say. They believe in your voice that says a lot needs to be changed.”

Equal space

Directed by Deepti Gupta, the feature length film resonates with every woman’s search for an equal space in a culture ridden with millennia of misogyny.

In its initial stage, the motivation was to share her love for music, history and the cultural influence that her tunes draw from the various alleys of India. “The plan was to cover the length and breadth of my country, to connect dots for my musical inspiration, my love for travel and history. So, whether I went to Nizamuddin Dargah where qawwalis have been sung for 800 years or to Vrindavan to trace the journey of Meerabai, who in my eyes is a rock star since even after being a princess, 400 years ago she could sing and dance openly (a sign of a strong woman who impacted the society in incredible ways), I was in search of these inspirations and showcase them to people.

New narrative

But as the film began to roll, the tumultuous life events of this singer began to shape a new narrative. “So many incidents were happening in my life that was so full of conflict and so masaledaar so to say. A criminal notice for a video that led to many visits to the police station, then a big debate on national TV, getting threats, all this was painful and taxing but not new for me. During the Salman Khan troll, I had spent three months running to police station every other day. I was severely trolled with death threats, acid attack threats and so much more.”

At this point, her partner Ram Sampath gave a suggestion that made all the sense to Sona. “Ram said your life is so full of conflict, there’s so much to reveal, so why are you caught up with only travel and music, Khusro and Meera Bai; it should reflect your own journey too!”

Real take

Sona was producing it because there was no plan of making it about her, but then the film became Shut Up Sona. And she says, “But that is how the documentary format is, it captures reality and my reality was very masaledaar and film-worthy at that time.”

Already working on a sequel, Sona has titled it Please Sing Sona and says it will be a political-music documentary with a very strong gender narrative. “It’s not your typical serious documentary; it is a lot of gaali galoch, music, fun and craziness at the heart of it.”