July 30, 2010
School of Communication, Coimbatore
ASCOM’s student production The Good, The Bad & The Ugly bagged the Jury’s Special Mention at the Face Video Awards at Calicut.
Following Save Earth, a one-minute short film on the environment, this is the second film from Amrita to bag a prize at a video competition.
An experimental work crafted over the course of one day by Bishwas Balan and Soumya M., The Good, The Bad & The Ugly portrays exploitation and power relations in a class-divided society.
“We wanted to establish silence as a powerful tool of communication,” stated Bishwas, actor-screenwriter-director. No dialog is used in this 15 minute film.
The film features individuals waiting at a bus stop. Actors, drawn from the Amrita Department of Social Work, together with Bishwas, interpret and portray the inner workings of the minds of people from different classes of society.
The film reflects the kind of communication training students at Amrita receive and the sense of visual language that they develop. “We were encouraged to confidently experiment, even with limited resources,” shared Bishwas.
“We only wish we had spent more time working on the sound design. But then, we never thought that the film would end up on the festival circuit.”
The entire 15 minutes is filmed at the bus stop. “Despite the temptation of shifting locations for variety, I wanted to button hole the film’s events to a single location. The bus stop provided the motivation for the strong narrative.”
The film was also bestowed the unique honor of opening the screenings at the recent DBICA Short Film Festival 2010 in Chennai. Twenty-two short films were screened at this one-day festival.
What next? “The film has been selected for a screening at the upcoming BIMS Video Fest 2010 in Kochi and I have my fingers crossed.” Bishwas looks forward to the day when he can direct a feature film.
“The entire credit for this film goes to the student production team, who put it together in a very short amount of time. Cameraperson Soumya M., Production Associate Sinil Francis, Camera & Script Associate Sreekanth were all great to work with.”
“In addition, we had amazing actors, Mohammed Muhassin and Ramesh R. Menon, from the MSW program.”
“I want to also express my heartfelt thanks to my mentor, Mr. Rakesh S Katarey, of ASCOM and Mr. Nagalingam, of Department of Social Work for their valuable moral support.”
