Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ketkee Pande. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ketkee, we’ve been so fortunate to work with so many incredible folks and one common thread we have seen is that those who have built amazing lives for themselves are also often the folks who are most generous. Where do you think your generosity comes from?
I wouldn’t know exactly where my “generosity” stems from, it’s such a self-absorbed adjective to describe one’s self, but I can talk about the most selfless and generous person I know in my life – my father. He is so selfless that he will put his tasks in hand aside and help a person in need, not only emotionally, but socially and financially too.
I think watching him, tirelessly live his life for others, has just forced me to tune into thinking about others and I try to to better every day.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Here’s a little about me:
I’m a Director/Screenwriter, my work journey in the film industry started in Orlando, Fl, USA where I graduated from Full Sail University and later I worked in Manhattan, New York on a few shows and projects including, “The Blacklist”, “Blindspot” and assisted Mr Roger Spottiswoode.
I was also fortunate enough to be in the distribution department at Cannes 2019 via the American Pavillion.
After COVID hit, I’ve been back in Mumbai since 2020 and have been out and about since then, I worked on a few advertisements as an Assistant Director and Screenwriter and also made a short documentary on housewives. I got funding for my short, The Last Meal, about Bhagat Singh’s (an Indian revolutionary) last meal. It which won multiple awards in America including the DC South Asian Film Festival, Chicago South Asian Film Festival, and IFFSA Toronto and screened in over 10 cities in India including the Jagran Film Festival and multiple wins all over India.
During my early studies in Mumbai, India, I had no clue about filmmaking. It was just me, alone, making up stories with inanimate objects or forcing my classmates to put up a play in history class about the latest lesson. I remember always wanting to tell a story and no one could stop me from doing that. I’m the kind of a person who notes down comments/anecdotes to use in my scripts later on and to make what I know as there are so many stories all around us waiting to be told. Growing up, I’d always notice the “invisible people”, somebody who one probably wouldn’t notice on a subway. It still intrigues me, I think the mundane is just a blanket over their extraordinarily complicated lives. Having grown up in India and travelled most of it, I’ve seen the culture with numerous sights, scenes & stories. These unique places and their rich histories have had a major factor in shaping me as a person.
I feel that stories have the power to transform, transition and travel. When I tell stories or watch them, in any form, be it film, theatre or even reading a novel, I can see thoughts transforming into characters and see them right before my eyes. I can relate and empathize with those characters. I also believe that stories can cause a major transition, a change in society, and awareness for good. With the world being so small now, stories, movies and TV shows tend to travel even faster but even when we weren’t globally connected, folklore existed and so did ancestorial stories. This nature of storytelling is what compels me to tell stories and be the best filmmaker that I can be.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I am still pretty young and exploring and really going through it all in my twenties. But from what little I know, the three most important things of doing and being anything you want are Authenticity, Kindness and Dicipline.
Authenticity because knowing and finding out about who YOU are as a person makes your understanding of the world so much better. It’s so important in this social media age to truly be in touch with yourself and safeguard it. In a society where people are so easily influenced and feel so pressured to be a certain way, I believe that it’s most important to constantly discover yourself.
Kindness is one factor that I would never give up on even in a situation where it seems impossible to be. I believe in Karma and how it reciprocates and finds it’s way back to you. It’s a very underappreciated quality, kindness, often even looked at as a weakness but I think that it can move and get through a person at a humane level and it’s something I strive to be every day.
Discipline is something I struggle with even now but someone once told me that motivation fades but discipline never does. It’s the most difficult skill to achieve in life and I understood the value of it very later on in life even though my mother, being a sportswoman, always tried to engrave that in me. If you have this skill in life, it can overpower talent, Showing up matters most,
What has been your biggest area of growth or improvement in the past 12 months?
The past 12 months have been the most difficult for me as I lost my dog and a lot of things didn’t work out as I expected them to in a lot of areas of my life.
Sometimes growth is just taking every day as it comes, just keep swimming. I have learnt how to avoid expectations and truly just live in the moment, yes don’t stop dreaming of course but put in the work, towards yourself and your mental health because people around you and your work will only be good when you are in a positive mindset.
I’ve also learnt how to just go with the flow and ease out as I’m someone who is so anxious about the future and also anxiously attached to every thing and person in my life, it’s something I am working on and I’m happy about that.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @ketkeepande
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ketkeepande
Image Credits
Rafe Barretto
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