Keywords Experimental Thriller Crime Media |
My diploma film is a short experimental film inspired by Man from the South, a short story by Roald Dahl. The story revolved around a criminal, a man who would chop off the fingers of his opponents after winning bets, and who was on the run for a decade before he was caught.
Although fictional, the film follows a style of narration, which is similar to that of a documentary. The story is threaded together with the help of interviews of numerous people directly and indirectly connected to the criminal. A group of college students making a documentary on the security issues the elderly have to deal with in present-day India recount a chance encounter they had with the criminal.
The film, which was shot in Ahmedabad over a period of three days, was made on a shoestring budget. In order to get the “documentary” feel and make the actors feel more comfortable in front of the camera, the film was shot entirely with a DLSR camera. The dialogues of the film were not dubbed, but recorded live on location.
This project helped bring together my love for short stories and for using film as a medium to interpret and relay these stories. It also gave me the chance to go back to journalism and hone my skills as a filmmaker. The journey was an eye-opening experience, where I learnt to handle a big team and realised how the combined efforts of many people help in the process of creation. |