Nikita Parikh’s short documentary, Making Space, can well be called by another name – the portrait of an artist as a young woman. The lady in focus is Alsana, for whom a room might be a distant dream but a corner shelf of her own becomes a space where her rules apply. Parikh’s gentle, free-flowing, conversational exploration is as stream of consciousness as the workings of Alsana’s mind. The filmmaker melds animation with live-action and uses Alsana’s own sketches and art to create a unique narrative. Art also becomes a mode to discuss urgent socio-political realities – gender roles, human rights, communal harmony, and the distances people are forced to travel to find safety and security for themselves and their families.
Nikita Parikh
Nikita Parikh came to filmmaking through education during her time with Teach For India, an NGO which works in government and low-income private schools across the country. During her Master’s Degree in Education at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, she started using participatory media tools with teenagers. She is driven by making films that promote understanding, empathy, and change.
