As part of the Chivas studios tour, a short film directed by Shakun Batra under the Dharma production banner was showcased in the capital. The movie titled Strangers In The Night was a 14-minute short film about two friends, who meet two different women and end up having a memory of a lifetime. We caught up with the cast of the film, who were pretty excited after getting rave reviews from the audience after the screening.
Shakun Batra, whose directorial debut Ek Main Aur Ekk Tu was much talked about due to a different treatment to the story, mentions that with this film the idea was to try something creatively challenging. “When I was in film school I used to experiment with short films but I always failed at it, so this film was in a way my redemption. I feel shooting short films and advertisements are very challenging as we have limited time span and less budget, so the summation and narration of the story have to be really catchy,” he said.
The West has already warmed up to the concept of short films, and as people are getting more tech-savvy there is a big room for short-yet-interesting stories, feels Shakun, who adds, “Movie buffs of my generation are equipped with iPads, YouTube and Kindle, so knowing the target I feel short films have a bright future. In the West, film students are already making movies and releasing it online for a global audience. If everything goes as per plan, we are also planning to release this movie online by next year.”
The lead actor of the movie Mohit Marwah, who is a self-confessed “hardcore Delhi boy,” agrees with Shakun and feels that the popularity of short commercial films will surely see a rise in future.
He says, “Before plunging into full-time acting I worked as an assistant director with the most professional filmmakers in the industry. Given the reactions we received after the screening of this film, I feel such off-beat scripts have a great future. We made this movie in a limited budget and got a really good response.”