Anu Vaidyanathan, who was the first Asian woman to compete in Ultraman Canada, is now exploring filmmaking

The community of marathon runners in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai will remember Anu Vaidyanathan as a serious endurance triathlete who inspired others to go that extra mile. She holds the distinction of being the first Asian woman to compete at Ultraman Canada and Ironman Canada in 2009. In later years, he helped others improve their running as a fast bowler, traveled and gave motivational talks, and participated in more marathons and endurance sports. planning.

Cut to the present and Anu admits that her competitive phase as a professional triathlete is pretty much over. She continues to run, cycle and swim for the pleasure of it. A part of his time is devoted to film production. She has written and directed a few fiction and non-fiction short films and is working on a feature film.

The transition began when his memoir Anywhere But Home: Adventures in Endurance (HarperCollins) was long-listed for a film adaptation at the 2016 Mumbai International Film Festival. “Till then I was not actively involved in cinema, other than watching movies occasionally,” Anu says over the phone from the US. When I participated in discussions with people who showed interest in turning my memoir into a biopic, I didn’t engage with their point of view. An Edman friend advised that as a starting point, I try to understand how to write a screenplay. ,

Curious, she attended a masterclass in screenwriting by director Aaron Sorkin: “It was like brain candy. As a writer, I knew how difficult it is to capture readers’ attention with a story. I realized that cinema is very difficult. ,

The more she discovered about screenwriting and filmmaking, the more she became involved: “It was like going down a rabbit hole.”

The work took Anu and her husband to different countries and, intermittently, in the UK, she took short courses in writing, editing, directing and cinematography at the National Film and Television School, Beaconsfield, UK and online courses at Sundance Collab . She remembers being the oldest of a class filled with 20-something aspiring filmmakers in the UK during her second pregnancy: “The jargon they used was completely new to me.”

Anu had no problem learning the basics of filmmaking in her 30s. As a triathlete, a PhD in electrical engineering, founded an intellectual property firm, and briefly taught at IIT-Ropar and IIM-Ahmedabad, she lived in 10 countries and had a lot to say: “The longer you live, the more live-in your stories can be.”

She presented screenplays for international film festivals and was a finalist in 2020 at the Sundance Episodic Labs (for a TV series) and the Hubert Bales Fund, Rotterdam International Film Festival (for a feature film). These projects are in the pipeline.

A still from Anu Vaidyanathan’s short film ‘Split’ | photo credit: special arrangement

her first short, small boat, was a non-fiction filmed at the 2019 Kumbh Mela. She jokingly says, “Initially I thought I would do cinematography considering my engineering background. Then I realized that cinema is a director’s medium. A director is like a sad triathlete or a pentathlete who has to be good at many things. ,

During the pandemic, he and his family had to stay in the US and used the time to write and direct short films. his first short story split, Which follows the story of a couple, all set to go on floors when the lockdown was imposed. It was filmed when restrictions were eased and postproduction was done online. like other shorts spaz (musical), falling star (about an aging artist) and a Spanish film Este Ignorant PresenteFollowed, among other titles. She plans to present some of these titles at international film festivals.

Now looking to start work on her first feature film, which will be an English-Tamil bilingual, Anu says storytelling comes naturally to her: “When I interacted as a triathlete, I came across interesting anecdotes. So that I don’t get duplication. ,

With most of her short films so far being done mostly indoors during the pandemic, with a limited cast and crew, she intends to take her feature films outside: “Being an athlete, I imagined The flights are all out. I would like my films to reflect that.” For the adaptation of her memoir, which attracted interest from two well-known Mumbai studios, she revealed that she bought back the rights and intends to make it into a film at a later date. .