Rays of Light

Pune filmmaker, Anupam Barve’s short film Afternoon to be showcased at International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala

When Pune-based, Anupam Barve began work on his short film ‘Afternoon’ in 2012, he was aware that each person will interpret his open-ended, abstract film differently. But his experiment has paid off with the film being shortlisted for the 7th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, which will be held from July 18 to July 22.

The idea of the 12-minute long film came to Barve on one lazy afternoon. “A friend and I would brainstorm and write scripts for a feature film at a flat on Prabhat Road. Since the room was nearly empty with minimal furniture, the ambience that the sunlight would create during the afternoons was magical. I tried to capture that mood,” says Barve, adding, “So ‘Afternoon’ is the product of one of those warm, empty afternoons; when you neither like being left to yourself nor do you like being compelled to speak; when you want someone around, yet desire solitude and privacy.”

The film revolves around a woman who is revisiting a place and reflecting on a past relationship. He has consciously used minimum dialogues, to lend it an abstract quality, but you don’t quite know whom the voice-over belongs to. “While some people feel that there is just one character in the film, some see more than one. Some feel the character is for real, others believe he is the product of the protagonist’s imagination. But that’s the beauty of abstraction; it’s always open to interpretation,” says Barve of the film, which features Anjali Patil and Ashmit Pathare.

The minimal dialogues, he says, worked well for the theme and the characters. “Without hinging on dialogues, I wanted to see how relations evolve and end,” says Barve, who is inspired by filmmakers such as Jiri Menzel, Atom Egoyan and Woody Allen. Prior to ‘Afternoon’, Barve has worked on a few shorts which include ‘The Hunt’, ‘Fresh Suicide’ and ‘At Your Fingertips’.

garima.mishra@expressindia.com

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