JOIN USAn assignment from a filmmaking workshop 23-year-old Shilpa Johar took last April is now winning her laurels — her three-minuter has been awarded the Gold under the students’ category at the prestigious International Independent Film Awards, California.
The one-shot film ‘Nange Pair’ plays out a day in the life of a victim of marital abuse backwards and features two characters. “I needed to say more in less because we had a time limit — and people have a very short attention span these days. I also wanted to leave it open-ended, for people to wonder which of the two characters was wrong, but at the same time, empathise with the woman,” she explains. That’s why she chose this approach.
Her film has also been accepted for the Sundance Ignite 2016 Adobe Project 1324. “It’s the only Indian entry so far and mine is the top one,” she says, with a sense of wonderment. “Nearly all the other films, I’m sure, are made with a bigger budget.”
She wrote, directed and shot the film. She had an assistant and two actors on board, while her brother helped with production. “We shot it at my old apartment over nine hours and in one go,” she recounts. “We spent a total of Rs 3,000 — Rs 1,500 for a new sari for the woman and the same amount on food and Red Bull for the five-member cast and crew.” Adept at make-up, Shilpa managed that profile as well.
The youngster, who has been fascinated with storytelling right from school, believes the visual medium in general and cinema in particular is the fastest way of getting a message across. An admirer of filmmakers Guillermo Del Toro and Tim Burton, she wants to make art cinema. “I think artistically and often try one shot in 10 different ways,” she elaborates.
From closer home, she follows Anurag Kashyap’s works keenly. “He touches things no one else does, and crafts it so gracefully. I’ve seen every one of his films at least twice,” she gushes. “He’s being seen as a commercial filmmaker these days, and I think it’s good that a large number of people are accepting different kinds of cinema.”
She has worked on several other projects over the past year-and-a-half. “Most recently, I led a team for India Film Project, when we had 50 hours to make a film,” she adds. This was a nine-minute project, and each one she has worked on since ‘Nange Pair’ has been for a slightly longer duration than the last. “I do want to make a feature film, but I want to continue learning this way, so a making something of that length will probably take four or five years,” she says, laughing.