Three girls, three issues, tight budget, tighter schedule and they say All I Want is Everything (AIWIE). This is Shital Morjaria’s production and direction debut of a 60-minute English film. This film has already made the rounds at two film festivals and is set to visit the third one. “We are heading for the Kerala fest and are very pleased with the response we received in the earlier fests at Mumbai and Goa, which happened last year,” says Shital. Also a producer at a new local channel, Shital sees this as her dream come true and her experience as a producer helped. “In television, programming is secondary, so we are used to working on tight budget and a limited time frame. That experience, in a way, helped me in completing the movie within the stipulated time and budget,” she adds. The script of the movie All I want is everything is by Shital and is produced by her friends, Jhansi (popular TV anchor) and Rekha Pappu. It was shot in 10 days sharp and after that the team didn’t even get a chance to raise a toast to their hard work. “We had a lot of fun during the rehearsal sessions but once we wrapped up work we all had to get back to our respective lives and jobs from which we took a break.”
With the cast being three girls, this was an almost all-women movie. “We had a few men helping us as well,” she laughs. As far as the script goes, Shital says it is about an issue which we will relate to in some way or the other. But, it is definitely not about sexual harassment at work. “Such was the connect that a young man walked up to me after watching the movie and said I had a lot to relate. When I said, ‘it is all about girls,’ his reply was ‘issues don’t vary a lot.’
At the Goa fest, a father’s comment, ‘my wife and daughter’ will relate a lot still rings in my ears. The father made sure he got his wife and daughter for the second screening,” recollects Shital.
So, how did Shital decide on her cast? “A lot of search happened and I met a lot of actors but nothing clicked. So, I resorted to seeking help from friends and in the due course of time and a few snow-balling sessions later, my leading ladies were in place and the trio turned out to be perfectly cut-out for the script,” she says. The actors Sampada Haraka, Ianta Mittchel and Sagari Venkata all come from different walks of life and were keen on acting. The director’s basic requirement was to cast someone comfortable in English as the script was in English and “we did nothing to change their original look’ except cropping one of the actor’s hair as the role demanded,” confirms Shital. Shot in and around the city, the film will be screened by the end of next month in a multiplex. “After finishing the shoot, I applied for film fests. But now I feel the film should reach out to everyone. I am not imparting gyaan or trying to find solutions. The movie is about how girls overcome certain issues.”
