Attend a film night to find out how to approach short films as an indie art form

A still from Tokri

The light's red. On a vacant stretch of the road in the middle of nowhere, a businessman waits with two other men for the light to turn green. It doesn't. There's no car around. There's basically no sign of life. Yet the three wait until impatience takes the better of one and he steps on the road. Something black who­o­shes past, and the man disappears. The two others continue to wait and in a Beckettian turn of events, they are caught in a grotesque fairy tale of bloodthirsty traffic and life.

Kunal Jhaveri

This is Detsky Graffam's short film, 90 Degrees North, that was nominated for the European Short Film Award in 2016. Six films, including this one, will be screened at the international short film night to be hosted by Harkat Studios in collaboration with Filamnt, a film programming and distribution company.

Karan Talwar

"The films have been specifically licensed to my company from Kurz Film Agency based in Hamburg, Germany. The idea is to promote short films, especially international short films, since we do not get to see such award-winning, critically-acclaimed films in India. So, I'm trying to raise awareness for it," says Kunal Jhaveri, founder, Filamnt. Jhaveri has picked the films because they are his favourites. "But what I've realised after choosing the films is that there is an underlying theme of finding abstractness in our everyday life; how certain things have a relationship with us that is unknown," he states.

"This is my way of bringing to our filmmakers and enthusiasts work from around the world. It's what I mean when I think of paving a way for all to approach short films as an art form. In most festivals, short films will just play before or after a feature film. It doesn't make sense for festival curators to do that. That's why I thought this would be a great thing to do, and tell filmmakers in India that you can make a short film as a form in itself," says Karan Talwar, co-founder, Harkat Studios.

Among the line-up is also a clay animation film from India titled, Tokri. "It is a 15-minute, stop-motion film that took eight years to be made. It's about a girl trying to make amends for some deed by selling baskets," says Jhaveri, adding, "The filmmaker, Sure­sh Eiriyat, will present the film and also speak about the making of it." The other films to be shown are Ten Meter Tower, Rhino Full Throttle, Short Film and Centrifuge Brain Project.

On March 24, 7.30 pm to 9 pm
At Harkat Studios, bungalow no 75, 2, JP Road, Aram Nagar, Versova, Andheri West.
Rsvp eventshigh.com

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