EXCLUSIVE Interview! Nila Madhab Panda on ‘The Jengaburu Curse’; India’s first cli-fi series

In an exclusive interview with National Award winning filmmaker, Nila Madhab Panda on The Jengaburu Curse and why he calls it India’s first cli-fi series.  The show stars Nasser and Faria Abdullah. Known for doing meaningful films, Panda explains why it was important to do a cli-fi series. The first story he cracked was on way back in 2005 when he saw two villages submerged under the sea called Sadhbaya.

The Sony LIV show, The Jengaburu Curse stars Nasser, Makrand Deshpande and Faria Abdullah. Set in a small town in Odisha, the show follows the story of London-based financial analyst, Priya Das. When her father, Professor Das, goes suspiciously missing, Priya is forced to come back to Odisha. As she starts to search for him, a series of strange events ensue that unravel an unlikely connection between the indigenous Bondia tribe and the mining state of Odisha. The Jengaburu Curse, which marks Nila Madhab’s OTT debut, delves into the repercussions of mankind’s never-ending needs on nature.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

How did the idea of the show come to you and what is the methodology you followed while making the The Jengaburu Curse?

It’s a simple thing; I come from a rural background and humble village where the ecosystem was perfect. In the last three decades, I became a globetrotter and you realize that everything has developed but you realize that you have done so much damage to yourself since the environment is changing. We have made films on the Mumbai underworld and Independence but we missed out telling stories on something that’s happening to us every day, it’s time to bring these stories out. Fiction comes out of reality. My fiction is based on a lot of truth.

 On making India’s first cli-fi series, The Jengaburu Curse

Telling the story of your surroundings, your mountains on a day to day basis is what I wanted my audience to see. Every day we read some sad news of temperature rising, sea-level rising, ice melting; all these effects are caused by us. It’s purely climate change fiction. Every cause and its issue, our show starts with a small legend that for ages, the tribal are protecting the hills and their kings and lord.

Someone found something precious and dug the hill but didn’t realize what they were doing. Are we creating development which is causing something really bad to ourselves? It’s not just a thriller, since I am also talking about the world that’s changing because of climate change and that’s the reason, I would like to call it a cli-fi thriller.

Did this start very early for you?

The first story I cracked was all the way back in 2005 when I saw two villages submerged under the sea called Sadhbaya. I followed that story for 15 years, and in these 15 years, seven villages were submerged under the sea in Odisha due to sea level rise and greenhouse gas emission.

What made you so passionate about the topic of climate change?

 It’s quite simple. I think we grow older and things change in our body in terms of resistance and everything so my simple point is- we live on one planet and I felt, growing up in a small village, or anyone living in New York or South Africa, we made it so rapid that the consequences became bigger. As a humble child growing up to becoming a globetrotter, the changes become so fast.

God has given us enough, but when greed comes in, you go deeper. When mankind was born, we were looking for food, we created iron, fire and we began surviving. Today, we want everything to be so fast. When Covid-19 shot us down, water was better, birds were flying in the skies in Mumbai, so yes, life could be like this. You can tell these stories to people otherwise environment only becomes a topic of discussion. I feel responsible as an artist to tell these stories.

On cinema getting close to reality

I think this is post-Covid. Entertainment is good, but when you start watching these shows, we create new audiences. That’s the scope here, you don’t have niche audience but a wider audience. We were called the art house filmmakers, today, I’ve found this thriller and when you watch it, you’ll feel closer to the characters and the story.

Why did you make The Jengaburu Curse into a series and not a movie?

The story goes from Odisha to London to Myanmar to North Korea, I didn’t have the leverage to tell such a dense story as a two-hour long film. It’s an experience of that world, of climate change. I could push all my boundaries in terms of storytelling and treatment.