Information professor’s documentary premieres at Venice Film Festival

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When Assistant Professor of Information Joyojeet Pal studied the use of computers in a rural school in southern India, he noticed something odd — most of the children he met wanted to be computer engineers, though they had little access to technology.

Pal discovered that the kids were fans of popular Indian actor Rajnikanth, who played the role of a computer engineer in one of his blockbuster action films.

A year later, Pal read about a sweet shop owner in the southern state of Tamil Nadu who planned to climb more than a thousand stairs on his knees to pray for the success of a new movie starring Rajnikanth, who only uses one name.

Joyojeet Pal, assistant professor of information, invested his life savings in a documentary about fandom in India. (Photo by Jay Jackson)

Pal shared the news with Rinku Kalsy, a childhood friend and filmmaker in Amsterdam. They went to see the villager and the idea of a film on fandom was born.

“I wanted to find out more about these men whose devotion, obsession and fandom for the actor stopped at nothing,” said Pal.

The documentary, “For The Love of a Man,” produced by Pal and directed by Kalsy, premiered Sept. 4 at the Venice Film Festival. Pal’s belief in the film goes beyond time and research. He has invested his life’s savings in the film that follows the fans of Rajnikanth, who has been in more than 200 movies.

The actor is a 64-year-old balding man known to thousands of fans as a beloved everyman. His life is a true rags-to-riches story. He rose from bus conductor to India’s top-earning film star. During some of his most successful years, he was the highest-paid actor in Asia after Jackie Chan.

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There are more than 150,000 fan clubs dedicated to Rajnikanth worldwide, from rural Tamil Nadu villages to cities in Japan. For the past four-and-a-half years, Pal and his team have tracked the lives of some of these fans. They found ordinary men who sold their homes to fund fan clubs, held prayer meetings for the success of the actor’s films, and even looked for wives based on whether they were Rajnikanth fans.

Pal raised about $7,000 on the Indian crowdsourcing website Wishberry last year — funds that helped him finish the film editing. After all the hard work, Pal said a world premiere at the Venice Film Festival feels great.

“I would like to get a theatrical release for the film,” he said. “I want it to be accessible to everyone.”

Currently on sabbatical, Pal will return to U-M for the winter semester.

Q & A

What can’t you live without?

Sriracha.

What is your favorite spot near campus?

I really loved the reading room on the eighth floor of Hatcher, but they don’t allow the public in there anymore.

What inspires you?

That life is fleeting, and that our lives as professors are incredibly privileged, giving us the ability to pursue creative thought and work that is so easily inaccessible to many others.

What are you currently reading?

A lot of papers that I am nearly overdue on reviewing.

Who had the greatest influence on your career path?

Evenly split between the kids at the first school where I taught, which made me realize I liked teaching, and whatever congressmen came up with the H1B quotas which made it harder for me to get a work visa back when I needed one, thus gently nudging me to academia.

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Comments

  1. Joan Smith
    on September 16, 2015 at 4:55 pm

    Hope to see this promising film, congratulations.

  2. PF Anderson
    on September 17, 2015 at 9:30 am

    Counting on a local showing! Or several!

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