KOCHI: In the short film, ‘Mouse Trap’, which was recently released by Mollywood director Lal Jose, the lead role is played by Antony Varghese, who rose to fame in the movie ‘Angamaly Diaries’. Krishnan Balakrishnan also plays one of the lead roles.
He is a driver who is in financial trouble, while Antony enacts the role of his friend named Subbu. “Each part of the film is shot with fine detailing giving it a more realistic approach,” says director Vincent Jose.
The director says that he had to face a few problems while shooting the film. For example, in Thiruvananthapuram, he had selected a house for shooting. But at the last moment the owner refused, so he had to look for another location. However, Vincent has shot the film at different locations. A scene showing a flock of birds flying had been shot in Mumbai. Likewise, a sunset scene had been shot in Bengaluru. But the film had been shot mostly in Thiruvananthapuram and Fort Kochi.
Vincent showed the film to many directors. “Finally Lal Jose sir saw it and expressed his appreciation,” he says. When asked how Antony acted in his film, Vincent says, “I met him six years ago at a short film festival held in Kannur and we became friends.”
Vincent is pursuing his MBBS at the M K C J medical college in Berhampur, Orissa. “When I joined college in 2012, the idea about short films was not much known,” he says. “I started editing videos and tried learning more about directing and scripting short films. But it was only after directing my first short film, ‘Signal’, which starred Vijay Babu, that I became more interested in this field.” Incidentally, ‘Signal’ is a 2-minute drama about old age.
Later, he ended up making four short films - ‘Violet’, ‘Signal’, ‘Mouse Trap’ and ‘Life Sentence’.
‘Life Sentence’ was selected at the Cannes Film Festival a few years ago. It was based on the short story, ‘Dreams’ by American author O Henry which was left incomplete. It was a 10-minute film which was a poem the protagonist wrote as a suicide note. This was also screened in IFFK, Thiruvananthapuram in 2017. Vincent has plans to do another movie for which the script is ready.