On Your Radar: Sophiyaa Nayar

On Your Radar is a Grad Film News segment that features a current student. We asked Sophiyaa Nayar a few questions, and this is what she said.

What is the best advice you've ever received, and why?

“Only boring people are bored.” So if I’m writing something and it’s boring me, or not having any real effect on me, I know there’s something missing in the work. I try to write towards my own joy, dread, horror, discomfort, whatever makes me feel something. If I’m laughing while I write it, or slightly horrified that I thought of it, I’m probably getting somewhere. And strangely, no matter what effect I’m chasing, it feels like a delight to get to do it. 

Describe your earliest cinematic memory.

I leaned over the balcony, holding a watermelon my own weight. Young girls in boxers, oversized T-shirts and Uggs swayed and chanted in the rain-soaked courtyard below. Together, we climbed atop our altar: a picnic table set for a séance. The youngest girl, hands shaking, passed me the knife. The hums grew louder, more hypnotic. I arched my head back and, with a collective howl, stabbed and ripped open the watermelon. A communion, washing the young women of Solvik dormitory of our sins. Carrie with watermelon juice. My orthodox Christian dorm parent stood at her door, appalled, confused, maybe a little allured, holding a cake that read “Happy 13th Birthday, Sophiyaa,” it's frosting melting in the rain. I was directing before I knew what it was. 

What do you consider your greatest achievement?

Currently, it’s a short film I directed with two 12-year-old boys and a 5-year-old girl in a jungle and an abandoned factory in the middle of nowhere in South India. The film rests entirely on their performances, as a game of hide-and-seek slowly becomes a vicious struggle for power. I had to get three children at completely different ages to understand that shift without directing the wildness out of them. By the end, they weren’t waiting for me to tell them what to do. They understood their character dynamics, made choices and surprised me. Getting performances that precise while letting them remain completely, unpredictably themselves is probably what I’m proudest of. It’s also the film that led me to my lovely agents at Casarotto Ramsay & Associates.

See Sophiyaa's work at sophiyaanayar.net
@Sophiyaa_Nayar (instagram)