A person who falls in love with someone, but, it’s never that simple, as we all know.
‘She’, is a short film made by the post-grad students of Journalism Department, Maharaja Sayajirao University, Vadodara. Independently with a great passion for, cinema a group of aspiring filmmakers, have made this standout film that breaks the rules of our society.
To tell us more about it, Karan Bhatt, the writer of the script and Srishti Mukherjee, the director, tells us about the background and the foreground gossips of the film.
So, starting with the idea of the whole story, we came to know about the fact that before making this into a movie, this was a blog written by him. He said, “Yes, as every story goes. One fine day, I decided to write a love story, the only difference here being that ‘She’ turned out to be a different love story”.
“It was when I joined the master’s course in Mass Communication and Journalism at M.S. University, I met my partner in crime Srishti Mukherjee. He had already been making films under his own production house called ‘Black Board Project’. We had it in mind that we will make this film, it took us a while, more than 3 months actually, to form a proper screenplay and most importantly be convinced with it and then after that we began working on how we are going to execute it”, explained Karan about when they decided to take his blog as a film script.
When asked about what made him take up such a bold topic and when questioned about his sexual preferences, he laughingly said, “No, I am not a homosexual. And I don’t think it is a bold topic. ‘She’ is just a normal love story involving two different people. That is how simple it is”.
“Let me begin with the screenplay. It was really difficult. Srishti and I have written the screenplay and to be honest, we had a really difficult time then. Our ideologies weren’t matching, we had fights, but one day everything fell in place and ‘She’ happened,” said Karan, when asked the most clichéd question about the challenges they faced while making the film.
“As far as funds are concerned, we had really difficult time. Short films have always faced difficulties when it comes to getting funds. But our mentor Joy Fernandes sir and Iftikar A Khan sir, who has also played a role in the film, came to our rescue. Showing enough faith in us and the script, they helped us. We consider ourselves lucky and know that we are not going to find people like them in every project. But we are going to continue making films,” he added.
Getting to the director of the film, Srishti has directed short films earlier as well. So, about the experience with ‘She’, he said, “I think this one was special. I had a whole crew with me this time. I believe it has put me in a place where I can say that I direct a scene with full conviction and confidence. It also taught me to believe in myself and to believe in stories that I want the world to know. It was a thorough learning process for us. Ivon Bobby, who has scored for the film, has explored new dimensions; Pratik Thakkar, the Director of Photography, has also excelled in the art of handling camera; the production manager, Sofia Ayushi, has handled the production schedule amazingly. And, of course the actors, since they are all friends, we already had the chemistry. Pronoy Singha, Kanal Patel, Vatsal Joshi, everyone has done an amazing job. It was a great collaborative effort.”
Finally, on the upcoming projects, Srishti shared, “The upcoming one is a project of a documentary on Vadodara. A film by the people, for the people, and of the people; of Vadodara.”
With this, they signed off. We wish Karan, Srishti, and Black Board Project a great future ahead.
You can find the film here:
