A group of school students have realised their dream of making a short film, and in style.
After converting 16-year-old Athith Balaji’s idea into a 15-minute short film titled ‘Yuugam’, the group went a step further — they sold tickets for a premiere show at the AVM Studios and screened the film on Sunday for a houseful audience.
Directed by Athith, the film was shown to an audience of around 500, most of which had heard of the film through Facebook or word-of-mouth marketing done by students.
Athith says he has been assisting short-film makers ever since his class X summer vacation. “I learnt a lot from my friend in the industry and want to pursue a career in films. Our team has made two amateur short films earlier, but this is our first professional attempt,” he said.
W. N. Mukund, associate director of the film and a student of Chinmaya Vidyalaya Higher Secondary School, Virugambakkam, said they want more people to find out about the film which has been made by a twenty-member crew, mostly comprising class XI students. “Other than two of the actors, all of us are school students from Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Virugambakkam and Taylor’s Road,” he said.
Mukund said they started work on the film that has been made on a budget of Rs. 53,000 around September. “We are screening the film only for a day on Sunday. If there is interest we will think about arranging further screenings or releasing it online where there can be an arrangement for pay-per-view. On Sunday, all our tickets, priced at Rs. 30, were sold out. But the idea is not to make money. We are looking at giving back the producers what they invested,” he said.
