Long story short

With bigwig actors and producers broadening the medium and its reach, the short film is no longer just for novices

October 18, 2016 12:00 am | Updated December 01, 2016 06:34 pm IST

Best of the lot:(Top) Ravi Jadhav’sMitraais perhaps the most striking film in the four-part Marathi-language anthology,Bioscope. (Above)Shor Se Shuruaatis an intriguing project made up of seven diverse films.— Photos: Special Arrangement

Best of the lot:(Top) Ravi Jadhav’sMitraais perhaps the most striking film in the four-part Marathi-language anthology,Bioscope. (Above)Shor Se Shuruaatis an intriguing project made up of seven diverse films.— Photos: Special Arrangement

For aspiring filmmakers enrolled in professional courses across the country, there is seldom anything holier than the ‘student diploma’ film. Back in the mid-2000s, as one of many hopeful students, short films were a big deal to me, too — and the only and ultimate medium of young expression. That’s when the term ‘Dimensions Mumbai’ entered our collective conscience. It started as part of MAMI, as a competition for amateur local filmmakers under the age of 25.

With the generic theme of ‘Mumbai,’ these films couldn’t exceed five minutes in length — much like our mid-term group filmmaking exercises. Amid the smorgasbord of world cinema available at the fast-evolving festival, this section represented our biggest opportunity in the real world, away from classes and screening rooms. And, of course, a chance to be in the top-20 finalists, and have your vision projected onto the big screen: the closest to experiencing an official ‘release’.

Untapped dreams

This year, in the 18th edition of The Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with STAR, Dimensions continues to make and define several untapped dreams. It retains its core city-philosophy and rules, with a more specific root-oriented theme. This encourages young minds to be versatile and observational about Mumbai, while exploring various hues of its quintessential identities.

Consequently, the top 11 to be screened this year range from a documentary about the struggles of a proud generational ‘coolie’ ( Batch Number 70 ) to the fictional account of an old-school taxi driver wrestling with the Bombay-to-Mumbai transition ( Meter Down ). There’s a 20-year-old filmmaker’s bitter-sweet interpretation of a father-daughter relationship ( Yours Lovingly ) to a film about three roommates’ desperately relatable battle to use the loo during water-supply hours ( Huggs ). The winners will be announced during the closing ceremony.

Hearteningly, the short universe doesn’t end at Dimensions this time. The programming has quietly evolved with the changing digital landscape. Over the last few years, we’ve seen short filmmaking in India become more than just mere stepping-stones or learning exercises. Established performers like Manoj Bajpayee, Radhika Apte, Sanjay Mishra, Naseeruddin Shah, Konkona Sen Sharma, Tillotama Shome and Aditi Rao Hydari, and directors like Sujoy Ghosh, Gitanjali Rao, Devashish Makhija and Shirish Kunder are broadening the commercial and artistic perception of this medium. This has led to focused platforms like Terribly Tiny Talkies, Muvizz.com and Pocket Films to produce some quality work.

Most competitive

One of these initiatives, (Royal Stag) Large Short Films, is responsible for the next section at MAMI 2016. Perhaps the most competitive and open category here, over 350 Indian shorts were uploaded from all over — the only rule being they should be less than 25 minutes long. In a way, this represents the next graduation level in the life cycle of short filmmakers after Dimensions: going pro. A jury of three — film critic and festival director Anupama Chopra, creative director Smriti Kiran and actor Tisca Chopra — whittled down the eclectic list to 10 finalists, out of which three winners have already been announced.

The winning film, called The Guest , will premiere at the fest while its director, Ayappa K.M. (an ad filmmaker) gets a chance to intern with Vidhu Vinod Chopra Productions. A polished little tale from start to end, this is about a young man looking for shelter in the hills after his car breaks down. The first runner-up, Achche Din , directed by Aron Mitr, is an amusing, lively political satire about a desperate bus commuter’s attempt to dry his white shirt. And the second runner-up, Kusum , is a 2010 film by Shumona Banerjee: a kinetic, well-acted short about an unlikely equation between a Bengali transvestite prostitute and an unhinged, jobless English Literature teacher.

The third medium of shorts this year forms the final and highest level of the short-film life cycle: Anthology films. There are the three big-ticket titles with famous directors at the forefront: Madly , the international six-film ‘love’ omnibus, which includes Anurag Kashyap as the Indian representative (he’s everywhere!) with his Radhika Apte starrer (she’s everywhere!), Clean Shaven which is an erotic drama. Apte went on to win Best Actress for her role in this segment at the Tribeca Film Festival in April.

The next, In the same Garden , is a collection of standalone shorts directed by internationally hand-picked festival favourites. It concentrates on the humanistic complexities of Turkish-Armenian relations through personal stories — one of which titled Infiltrator is helmed by Punjabi filmmaker Gurvinder Singh, of Chauthi Koot and Anhe Gorey Da Daan fame.

The third is Bioscope , the four-part Marathi-language anthology film that released in cinemas last July. With a prelude narrated by Gulzar, four acclaimed Marathi directors fittingly make films based on their favourite pieces of poetry.

Gajendra Ahire pays tribute to Mirza Ghalib’s ghazal, ‘Dil-e-Nadaan’, shows us two wistful remnants of themehfilera, a classical singer and a Sarangi player, reflecting on glorious times gone by. Viju Mane’s Ek Hota Kau is based on Kishore Kadam’s poem; a hyperactive tale about a man cursed with a dark complexion. Girish Mohite’s Bail , based on Loknath Yashwant’s verses, is about a lonely ox mourning the impoverished plight of his passionate master. And Ravi Jadhav’s Mitraa , based on Sandeep Khare’s poem and Vijay Tendulkar’s story, is perhaps the most striking of them: a surrealistic black-and-white drama about a lesbian in pre-Independent India struggling with feelings for her roommate.

Most intriguing

But possibly the most intriguing anthology project comes from short content incubators Humaramovie. Their last commercially released eight-film anthology, Shuruaat Ka Interval (2014) pivoted on the theme of an interval. It’s ‘noise’ this time with the aptly titled Shor Se Shuruaat, made up of seven diverse films directed by filmmakers who were nominated by the following mentors: Mira Nair, Homi Adajania, Nagesh Kukunoor, Shyam Benegal, Sriram Raghavan, Zoya Akhtar and Imtiaz Ali. Quite a roster, this.

As a result, their narrative grammar distinctly influences the work they supervise and present. For instance, there’s Adajania to be identified in a visually eccentric Amelie-ish portrait about a young, dreamy couple. Raghavan has to be found in the subversive alternate-universe tale about a woman at a futuristic sleep facility. And there’s Kukunoor to be felt in the final moments of an old criminal on death row.

To cut a long story short, shorts aren’t simply for beginners any more. A crafty way for filmmakers from all walks of life to express unfiltered voices, they remain as much a cinematic format as feature-lengths. And perhaps a fine variety of them can be sampled this week at your nearest big screen.

The writer is a freelance film critic, writer, and habitual solo traveller

We invite our readers and MAMI viewers to get creative and send us articles, pictures, posters, critiques, recommendati- ons, interactions, highlights of their experience at the festival.

Write to us at mamiatthehindu@gmail.com or namrata.joshi @thehindu. co.in.We look forward to hearing from you and the best contributions will be featured in an exclusive Readers’ Corner shortly.

Madly(World Cinema)

PVR Phoenix, October 21,

8.15 p.m.; PVR Icon, October 23, 8.15 p.m.; Regal, October 26,

8.30 p.m.

Shor Se Shuruaat(Spotlight)

PVR Icon, October 23, 4 p.m.

Bioscope(Marathi Talkies)

PVR Icon, October 24,

4.30 p.m.

Dimensions Mumbai

PVR Icon, October 23,

12.30 p.m.; PVR Phoenix, October 24, 11.30 a.m.; PVR ECX, October 27, 5.30 p.m.

In The Same Garden(World Cinema)

PVR Icon, October 22,

7.45 p.m.; PVR ECX, October 23, 4.35 p.m.; PVR Icon,

October 26, 7 p.m.

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