First look posters, teasers, trailers, songs… the normal pre-publicity route taken by filmmakers. But how about a first look video that is in the format of a telephone conversation?
‘Sarah & I’ is a first look video released online by makers of Humans of Someone , an independent English film, after the prologue video ‘dear padmarajan’.
This film marks the directorial debut of Sumesh Lal, the brain behind avant garde music shows on Malayalam television. Sumesh tells the story of a man obsessed with the late filmmaker Padmarajan. The character is so much in love with some of the characters created by Padmarajan that these characters get entwined with his life. Nitin Nath, the nameless protagonist of the movie, has also written the story, script and dialogues of the movie.
‘Sarah & I’ is a conversation over the phone between this character and Sarah, enacted by Madonna Sebastian. “While the prologue, which we call a spoken word musical, was like an honest testament about the filmmaker, this video is an introduction to the film and the two central characters in it.
“Although the conversation never happens in the film, we get to know about the film’s premise and what’s going in the mind of the characters. We wanted to introduce new ways of film promotions because the film veers away from the conventional ways of storytelling,” says Sumesh. ‘Sarah & I’ has music by Roby Abraham.
Humans of Someone is about how certain characters from Padmarajan’s path-breaking films come into the protagonist’s life. “It is a story of peripheries, it is also a love story of strange madness,” Sumesh says, without giving away much about these characters and the films from which they have been taken.
Govind Menon has composed the music and background score. The team is coming up with separate sound tracks by well-known musicians to introduce each of the characters. The film is expected to release by June. “We plan to send it to film festivals and hold private screenings so that people get to see an independent film with no distribution network to get it to theatres,” he adds.
