KOCHI: The inevitable doom waiting to grip the next generation- this is what is conveyed through ‘Kanal’, a short-film which recently won the Satyajith Ray award at an event in the city. The film has been directed by Thrissur-based Rasheed Parakkal.
Offering an insight into a future affected by drought, the premise of ‘Kanal’ revolves around the situation faced by a Keralite working in the Gulf. Since his native place is affected by the drought and his family is suffering from scarcity of water, the protagonist makes an arrangement for a borewell to be dug next to his house. However, the digging continues in vain and helplessness soon gives way to despair. The eight-minute long film concludes with images spelling out a grave future.
Rasheed says he wanted to convey the story because he faced a similar situation earlier. “Our house is isolated from the neighbouring houses, and the highway road is just a liitle further from the front porch. At one point of time, a borewell had to be dug nearby our house and all the while, I was away from home. It was through phone calls that my wife gave me updates on how far they have dug. I felt I needed to convey the tension through my short film’. Whether there is sufficient time to conserve enough water for our future generations is something which needs to be considered,” he said.
Apart from directing around twelve short films, Rasheed has also penned a few novels. Rasheed’s foray into writing and filmmaking was accidental. The 21-minute-long Kanal being an exception, the filmmaker likes to mostly focus on films spanning two-five minutes. He adds, “My aim is to convey the issues that contemporary society faces, making it as brief and hardhitting as possible. For instance, another one of my works focus on a youngster trying to take a video of a farmer’s suicide attempt on his phone, eventually being hit by a car in an effort to get a better view.”
Rasheed had done another two-minute-long short film titled ‘New God’ the previous year, which had become viral, with people believing it to be an actual CCTV footage. A self-styled short film maker, Rasheed hopes to come up with his own feature-length film soon. His short film ‘Vacation’ had won the award for the best environmental short film at the Palakkad Insight Film Festival.