Sajad Rasool Malik

Sajad Rasool Malik is a Srinagar based political cartoonist, graphic novelist and animation filmmaker. He earned his Masters in Visual Art from Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2012 on an Inlaks scholarship. Under his pen name, Malik Sajad, he published the critically acclaimed 352 page long graphic novel Munnu: A Boy from Kashmir, in 2015. He has made short films tiled Hopscotch (1.5 min) in 2010 and Father and Son (12 min) in 2012. He has participated in many international exhibitions such as Astonishment of Being at Whitney Academy, New York in 2009, Endangered Species II, South Asian Literature Festival, Rich Mix London in 2011, and Step Across this Line, at Asia House, London in 2011 to name a few. He is a winner of several awards like the Frances Green Burger Fellowship, New York in 2013, Amazon Rising Star in 2016. 

With this grant, Sajad Rasool Malik will make a 15 minute animation film that looks at the life of a cat and her kitten, in Downtown Srinagar, the old part of this city in Kashmir. The animation is an attempt of sharing everyday experiences of the valley, through the story of a cat and her kitten. Some years ago, an old man laid in front of Sajad’s car in the old city. He had walked over 20 miles, couldn’t walk any further and shouted at the passing cars passing to run him over. His family back home was starving and he had been out of work. What disturbed Sajad more than the incident itself is that shortly after this painful interaction, he forgot about it, as such incidents are daily occurrences. However, when Sajad saw a cat trying to reunite with its kitten, a different emotion grasped him. He says, “As I watched the cat’s desperation, its efforts pulled me away from the numbness and I saw in myself the rekindling of emotions such as curiosity, excitement, compassion. I rooted for the cat’s reunion with its kittens. Unlike the old man’s memory, the struggle of the cat left a mark in my mind. As I returned home, I scribbled a sketch of the cat trying to climb the fence. It was my first sketch after several months.”

Sajad is using anthropomorphism, by foregrounding the cat, as the main protagonist of his short animation film, to enable the viewers to bear witness to a landscape that is relatable, yet far removed because of human indifference. In the animation, Sajad wants the living and non-living beings to assume human and animal qualities, personifying human and animal suffering. One of the evaluators has shared that animation filmmaking is a natural progression in Sajad’s artistic journey. This started out as a political cartoonist, with his cartoon strips of one panel in daily newspapers, moving on to being the author of an outstanding graphic novel to the short animation films he has already made. All of his artworks have high contrast black and white as his palette, in which black is the norm and white is the irruption.  Building on his experiences of working as a graphic novelist, Sajad wants to push his limits through animation, for various reasons. Unlike graphic novels, where every frame is tightly packed with the visual vocabulary in a static panel, the animation allows a fluidity of timeline where he can navigate through the minutest details of an object or a space. More importantly for Sajad, the animation transcends the limitations of the hyper publishing industry. The possibility of digital transmission of a medium like short animation film will enable him to reach out to fellow peers, contemporaries and people in the valley and across the world, without relying on the marketing requirements of the publishing houses – almost like “a mural on the virtual wall”.

Both the external evaluators felt that the proposed animation film is of deep significance personally for the artist. They mentioned that Sajad has a very clear intent and an excellent plot, and he is experienced enough to make it possible. However, both of them have alerted that the pre-production process of the animation filmmaking has to be very accurately streamlined, through the guidance of a discussant. IFA will entrust Gitanjali Rao, an experienced animation filmmaker as a discussant with Sajad, during the preproduction phase of this animation filmmaking. 

Sajad feels that in the process of making the short animation by composing and sequencing around 6000 drawings, he will find inspiration as an artist in the valley, and a psychological relief. IFA finds it important to support this project that has the potential of a highly evocative artwork dealing with an emotionally charged subject in the subcontinent. Sajad’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be the animation short film, process images and high resolution film stills.