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cover art for 17: Nainita Desai on Perseverance, "The Reason I Jump," and "For Sama."

IN HER LENS

17: Nainita Desai on Perseverance, "The Reason I Jump," and "For Sama."

Season 2, Ep. 7

Nainita Desai is a British-Indian composer based in London, UK. Nainita’s eclectic musical upbringing led her to studying the sitar, piano, table, guitar, violin, and singing. After receiving a degree in Mathematics, she attended the National Film and Television School in London. She worked as a sound designer and musical engineer, working alongside Peter Gabriel. Making the powerful decision to transition to composing and following her love for music making; today Nainita is an Ivor Novello, BIFA, and Cinema Eyes Honors nominee, a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit and the IFMCA Breakthrough Composer (2020.) She’s composed intensely engaging scores for films, tv, documentaries, specials- including the Oscar-nominated and BAFTA-award winning film For Sama, the recent documentary The Reason I Jump, and Netflix’s most watched doc feature to date- American Murder: The Family Next Door. In this episode, Nainita and Nadine discuss her score for “The Reason I Jump” and about creating a work using prompts from a book. They chat about her roots in world music, attending Catholic school during the week & Hindu temple on the weekends, and about her choice to study Mathematics. She shares about what learned as a musical engineer creating sonic worlds and her pivotal career moments like when writing musical numbers for Mumbai High. They discuss the making of the score for For Sama, and the Netflix documentary American Murder: The Family Next Door.


The music in this episode was kindly provided by Nainita.


Nainita Desai is a film composer. You can check out her work on her website www.nainitadesai.com and Instagram, also streaming on Netflix, HBO Max, and Spotify.


Nadine Reumer is a Dutch actress and podcaster based between Amsterdam and New York City. For further information on her work & to get in contact, visit her website: www.nadinereumer.com

 

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