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'Skater Girl' director Manjari Makijany: The film is not based on one person
Updated On: 20 June, 2021 07:31 AM IST | Mumbai | Sonia Lulla
Film on skateboarding courts controversy as activist Reinhard says it’s based on her life; Skater Girl director Makijany asserts it draws from stories across India
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A still from Skater Girl
Days after the release of the Netflix film, `Skater Girl`, Ulrike Reinhard found her inbox flooded with congratulatory messages. The German social activists’ work in enabling Asha Gond—an underprivileged resident of Janwaar, whose inspirational stories of overcoming odds to pursue her love for skating—has been lauded for years, and netizens could draw parallels between her life story, and what unfolded on screen.
But, Reinhard doesn’t find herself rejoicing the release of debutante director Manjari Makijany’s film. She laments the fact that the makers went ahead and made it, despite her fall-out with them. “[I was told] that it was based on my life. They had also told me it was based on a girl, which was obviously Asha, given that she was the person I would talk about to them. The filmmaker says it is not based on this story, but there is no other instance of a foreigner coming to a rural village, building a skatepark, and working with the community,” says Reinhard of the character Jessica, played by Amy Maghera. “But, Jessica’s story is my own,” argues Makijany, an LA resident of Indian heritage, who built a skating park in Rajasthan, ahead of the shooting of the film. She further argues that it was the unit instead that found themselves revisiting their association with Reinhard after they began to question her “credibility”.
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