KOCHI: An IT professional develops an app. In the final stage, he finds a bug in it. Step by step, the coding expert fixes the bug. Well, that’s ‘Farrago’ for you, ladies and gentlemen. A second of your time before you end up a ‘confused mixture’. We are not talking about - specifically not - a tribute to Shashi Tharoor or his critically-acclaimed jargon. ‘Farrago’ is the debut short film directed by Ajayakrishnan.
The 12-minute-long film was conceived by a group of IT professionals working at Tata Consultancy Services in Infopark, and portrays a techie’s way of solving problems IRL (naive ones, it means ‘in real life’).
In the film, an obese IT professional waits for his colleagues in his car. During the long wait, he falls asleep and begins dreaming. He dreams of how he is robbed by two thugs and how he gets back at the villains. “The dream is picturised in such a way that the techie is solving his problem in his dream in the likes of fixing the bugs on an application,” says Ajayakrishnan.
Except for the editing and background score, the film was created wholly by the TCS colleagues-friends. With Jerin James, Maazil Manzoor and Jegadeesh playing the main roles in the film, Ajayakrishnan has handled both the script and direction.
The filming took place over five months. “We were all busy with our schedules. A day was set aside each month for the project,” he says. The film was made with a total budget of C40,000. “We didn’t have a producer financing the project. Since it was an experimental work, we, along with those in our friends’ circle, chipped in with finances,” he says.
Uploaded on YouTube in the last week of April, ‘Farrago’ has already garnered thousands of views.
The film became a reality after Ajayakrishnan’s friends saw his passion for movies. “This was an experimental effort. If I get a good story with a nice script, I will surely attempt to direct another short film again,” he says.