Tiny talkies from here and there

Two men who've shared an apartment for many years are parting. One of them is moving in with his girlfriend; he's packed and ready to leave and, just as he walks out, sits down to talk. The conversation is every day, reflecting the easy familiarity of two individuals of the same gender who share a living space - "Please take your shaving kit from the bathroom, you always forget it," says one. "Did you get one (new flatmate)," asks the other. And yet, underneath the casual banter, you sense a frisson, a hint of sadness and a tension, almost, as both men are careful not to give way to their feelings - is it just affection or something deeper?

At just over three and a half minutes, Adhiraj Bose's The Last Day, one of five films on season one of YouTube channel Terribly Tiny Talkies (TTT), packs an emotional range far beyond its short run time. So do the four other TTT films, which differentiate themselves from the flood of short films on YouTube by their slick production quality and tightly scripted narratives.

They also feature some exciting new faces who've found acclaim in recent small-budget indie films - The Last Day, for instance, has Tahir Raj Bhasin, Mardaani's menacing child trafficker villain, while Oscar-winner Resul Pookutty contributes the sound design. Nimrat Kaur of The Lunchbox fame appears in Devashish Makhija's 'El'Aiyachi while Tom Alter can be seen after a long hiatus in R.I.P. (Romance In Peace) and Mandira Bedi is the new age mamma who plays table tennis well enough to beat her teenage son in Deuce, by TTT co-founder Chintan Ruparel.

TTT started, says Ruparel, as an offshoot of Terribly Tiny Tales, an online platform of tweet-sized, i.e, 140 characters-long stories that Anuj Gosalia launched on Facebook in March 2013. "Micro-content, as a space, was waiting to explode and we wanted to own it. People loved it and it grew and multiplied over time. Extending it to 'Talkies', after 'Tales' seemed the next natural step. We decided to make it theme-based - season one is based on 'love' and was released around Valentine's Day. We decided to keep the films to five minutes - instead of being clever ideas wrapped up in a minute, we wanted to tell stories fuelled by character and five minutes gave us room to do this."

Season two, which Gosalia and Ruparel have already firmed up, will come out on May 10, on Mother's Day, featuring directors like Amit Masurkar (who made last year's Suleimani Keeda), ad-film director Karan Shetty and Piyush Raghani, a former MTV hand.

There's new thinking that's fast changing the norms of Mumbai filmmaking led by the likes of Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bharadwaj and R. Balki - and many on the peripheries of this mostly young, close-knit, hyper creative world have found TTT a fruitful outlet for their energies. Bose, for instance, was assistant director on Ek Thi Daayan, from the Bharadwaj stable, while Shlok Sharma who wrote and directed R.I.P. (Romance In Peace) was assistant to Kashyap on Gangs of Wasseypur.

The actors, too, are similarly adventurous. "Tahir had liked my script a lot and agreed. We shot The Last Day in one night - no one is so busy that they can't spare a night. After all, of us are here because we want to make good films," says Bose, who'd earlier directed veteran actors Naseeruddin Shah and Shernaz Patel in Int. Cafe - Night, a short film that's picked up a few awards at international film festivals. The idea, also, is for these artistes to grow and get more work - Bose, for instance, got a lot of acclaim for The Last Day, and was approached by All India Backchod (AIB) to make their first video post the infamous Roast.

The idea, eventually, is to turn TTT into a talent discovery and content platform, a community of creators, says Ruparel. "It's taken a fair amount of investment by us so far. We run an advertising agency, Not Like That, on the side which helps us support TTT without having to bootstrap. But we're also looking for newer avenues for brands and content to come together - so, there's brand integration in one of the films in season two where the product is seamlessly woven into the story. That should bring in some moolah, and help keep the Talkies open.