Authors are making short films based on their stories to reach out to a wider audience A story of six people whose lives intertwine on the streets of Mumbai on a lonely night. Another of a boy named Junaid and his travails. A girl in search of security,walking out on a boy who loved her. While these might sound like good plots to be written into short stories,which they have,they have also found a way to the silver screen in the form of short indie films. What is more interesting is that the directors,and in some instances the actors,are the writers themselves. Writers say the idea is also to promote the niche stories and the indie film industry. Shoestring budgets,production crews working for free and actors working on minimal wages or for free characterise these films. All this without compromising on the quality. Take the case of Aniket Dasgupta,founder of online magazine Dfuse.in and author of the short story,My Friend Junaid. Directing a film of the same name,Dasgupta says it was a re-imagination of the story. It gives you a wider playing field. You can be flexible with the plot and play with the story, he says. The budget of the film was just Rs 10,000,excluding travel costs. Authors Ahmed Faiyaz has also taken to filmmaking not just to make films on his own stories but also independent short films. His latest,All the Lost Souls,is a tale of actors based in the US and UK and was shot in Prague. Having a film budget of 25,000 euros is big by Indian standards but bare minimum by European standards, he says,adding,We had to pay the crew and actors a minimum wage as specified by the actors guild. All the Lost Souls,Faiyaz says,will be taken to film festivals across Europe,US and Asia. Faiyaz has also made a film on his novella,The Graveyard Shift,which is the story of six lives abruptly running into one another on a night in Mumbai. Gaurav Mathur,creative director at Grey Oak Films,says,The idea of making films out of short stories came because they offered ready scripts. There is no intention of mass releasing them,but film festivals and internet are good platforms for showcasing them. There is another aspect. Kainaz Motivala,who has acted in Wake Up Sid and Ragini MMS,has not only written for the first edition of Urban Shots a compilation of short stories but also acted in one of the short films based on a story from the compilation Rishtaa. She says,It is like shooting an advertisement. It was done in a day,and very professionally. It is a good thing to work in films like these because with limited budgets,they allow enough scope for creativity.
