BENGALURU: Kannada short film on sexual harassment Vighatane has been chosen for screening at the Miami Independent Film Festival. The movie is likely to be screened in the first week of August, the team says. The cast and crew members – team of five - who are on cloud nine, share the making experience with City Express.
Deepak Subramanya of Ayana fame and Bhamini Nagaraju are in the lead roles of the film that’s directed by Ram Manjjonath. Manasa Sharma is the director of photographer (DOP) and editor and Aparajith Sris has scored music for the film.
Director Ram Manjjonaath says, “This movie was made for Bengaluru International Short Film Festival (BISFF). The last date to submit the film for BISFF was June 1, but was later extended till June 10. Aiming to make it to BISFF, we shot the film in a day and the final product was ready in two days. I sent the film across to several other film festivals, including Miami, and only yesterday (Saturday) I got a confirmation from them.” The film’s concept was developed by lead actors Deepak and Bhamini. “I told Deepak and Bhamini to come up with a concept that happens inside a house. We did not have the time to go for location hunting. That’s when they came up with Vighatane,” Ram adds.
The film is 8-minute long. Lead actress Bhamini says, “The film takes place in 4 to 5 hours. Taking humanitarian point of view, the film talks about how an incident like sexual harassment affects not just one person but both involved. When two people are kept in closed space, it either ends up being a romantic film or murder mystery. Our challenge was to think beyond these two genres and come up with something different and the output has come out really well.”
Manasa Sharma, who has done the DOP, says, “The experience was challenging because we shot a night scene in the morning and that too in candlelight. This was a chance for me to play with the lighting and we all gave our best shot.” The team is planning to release the film by August end or in the first week of September. The team is also hopeful about winning awards and accolades at Miami Film Festival.