Two not-so-close friends, Rohith Subramnian and Sukesh Viswanath, decided to travel to South America to make a documentary. Neither of them had much idea what the country was like and what they should expect.
“In fact, our friends who have visited or read about South America told us it’s dangerous with all the trafficking, robbery and all sorts of scary things. We were intimidated, but we decided to not let that stop us,” says Rohith.
Rohith is a professional motorcyclist and Sukesh is an underwater filmmaker. Both their passions were put to task during the five months (January to May 2019) in the country. They documented four human stories along the way which was compiled into a documentary that will be released on an OTT platform (yet to be announced) by September. The duo captured the common man’s perspective on Narco tourism and how Pablo Escobar affected everyone’s family there.
Rohith says, “Pablo Escobar is a known name there and we glorify it because of the Netflix show. When we showed our excitement about it, the locals were upset to hear us. Their response was, “Yeah, he’s the one who killed one of my family members”. That was an eye-opener.”
Rohith and Sukesh also met a Spanish baker who quit his job as a tennis coach in Madrid, works two days a week and relaxes for the rest.
“He’s not a rich man. Before he left home years ago, his grandmother gifted him a box of yeast. He survived every day by making sourdough bread. After selling bread for two days, he rests the other days by watching the sun go up and down,” Rohith says.
They also captured the story of an old man who fell in love with the game of chess to forget the pain of being limited to a wheelchair after having been stabbed by a mugger.
“The last story highlights the tug-of-war between the government and artists in the underground graffiti scene in Bogot. It was quite fascinating to see people risking their lives to paint freedom,” says Rohith.
The documentary is in the final stages of post-production and will be released soon.