FROM NOWHERE

From Nowhere is an ambitious film, an honest portrayal of issues confronting the vibrant yet fast disappearing Chinese community of Kolkata.

I have always been fascinated with uncovering stories and studying the experiences of small minority communities, and especially those that are so minuscule that they are almost invisible.

In the current political climate of loud majoritarian politics, the experiences of a micro community like the Chinese, who are visibly identifiable as not belonging to the majority community was of particular importance to me.

A combination of many factors including a  complicated relationship with the Indian Government, the politics of nationalism and xenophobia, failure to adapt to a changing economy and integrate into the economic mainstream, closure of small family run businesses, the allure of a cushier life in the west, have all contributed to a steady exodus from Kolkata.

For Chinese youth, there is a peculiar sense of alienation and rootlessness that is their reality. Kolkata is the city of their birth, the only place they call home, the city they love yet one where they still feel like outsiders at some level. At the same time, while they try to preserve vestiges of the Chinese identity, they lack any meaningful connections with the land of their ancestors.

This feeling of alienation and rootlessness is at the core of “From Nowhere.”
The sadness of wanting to belong to a place where you will always feel like an outsider.

This film is an examination of identity, of a desire to belong to a place and a community, of wanting to find a human connection which is beyond the narrow definitions of religion, race and ethnicity.