Movie Murmur

A grab from the film ''Pamphlet' The success of anything would probably be reflected on how consistent it has been. Judging by this standard, The National Short Film Festival (NSFF), an event organized by the Department of Media and Communication Studies (DMCS) of the Savitribai Phule University in Pune is a highly flourishing film festival, as they have been holding it for nearly eight consecutive years now. The film festival showcases films that are below thirty minutes in length - fiction and nonfiction & student or otherwise - and awards nominal cash prizes in about ten categories. Although the department head Dr Madhavi Reddy is the inspiring force behind the festival, all the planning and execution work is done by her students to whom she has delegated responsibilities. Going by the films that were screened in the film festival, it seems that the film festival over the years has given a much needed fillip to the ever thriving short film making scene in...

A still from 'Touch of Evil' The first thing that strikes you with the mention of the 1958 movie 'Touch of Evil' authored by Orson Welles are the magnificent long takes that the film is adorned with. In simple words, long takes are those shots where the camera is not switched off for a long time. Legendary among the long takes in the 'Touch of Evil' is the one that comes in the very beginning of the film - in fact in the very first shot of the film that runs for about three and a quarter minutes. This write up is in appreciation of the cinematic genius of that particular shot. Let us first watch the shot. This shot, as you have seen, chronicles the immediate moments before a bomb gets blasted. The location is supposed to be the border towns of two countries - America and Mexico. The set used in the film for this particular shot is about three to four blocks of the town on the Mexican side and a few yards in the American side. Most roads in the...

(My foray into the short fiction format) Shooting of a Short fiction film Coming to think of it, even a shot thirty second advertisement film is a short fiction film. A not so handsome guy wears a cream and the girl falls for him - this could be the one liner of the story of an advertisement film on a fairness cream. Not that yours truly did not dip his hands into such versions of the short fiction film. An advertisement film on a bindi, a hair shampoo and a greeting card were some attempts that I had done in the initial days of my career in this format. The only 'non-neoliberal' solace that I have right now is that the companies that manufactured these products were not large multinational corporations - they were run by small entrepreneurs. In 2008, Sameer Mahajan the cameraman of my first fiction feature movie ' Suddha ' (The Cleansing Rites) gave me a call saying that he was facilitating the making of a short promotional film that will act as an eye op...

(My foray into the short fiction format) A still from 'Mani Bhai Pass Hogaya? (Did Bother Mani Succeed?) A short film can be a fiction or a documentary work; or it might simply be a non-fiction work. The three forms could well have a thin line of difference, one might argue. Agreed. Simplistically speaking, a fiction film is one which has an enacted story; and by and large the documentary uses real locations and characters. What then is a non-fiction short film? One that does not have a enacted story or that which does not use real location and characters? Some of the works of the Canadian film maker Norman McLaren could be termed as such, like his short film ' Horizontal Lines '. This film has an animation sequence of one line multiplying itself and then in the end the multiple lines merge themselves to be one again. Although it could be seen and interpreted as a film that has a story about a line, the film does not feature people in front of the camera - ena...

(My foray into the short fiction format) The short fiction movie format, like the short story its counterpart in literature, is a very powerful mode of expression; and a tricky one too. The maker will have to be precise, the luxury of meandering or dwelling on multiple aspects of the subject matter does not arise, the extra detailing might have to be cut off; and many a times like in a typical O. Henry style, a twist in the end is what is longed for. Mention the word short film and the 1962 black and white film from The Netherlands 'Big City Blues' directed by Charles Huguenot Vander Linden, the 1964 French movie 'An Incident at Owl Creek' directed by Robert Enrico or Julian Bigg's Canadian film '23 Skidoo', immediately pops up in one's mind. So, do the films of the Dutch film maker Bert Haanstra or the one and only Norman McLaren, the prolific Canadian short film maker.  23 Skidoo from National Film Board of Canada on Vimeo . But the ...