CHENNAI: Of imagination, looking inward and getting past the long struggle — filmmaker Bharat Bala’s tales of his journey was an inspiring start to Legend 2014, a three-day national level short film festival being held at the Visual Communications Department of Satyabama University.
Bharat got his big break with his advertisements for MRF. “It was my first opportunity, I was not bound by markets or products but just used my imagination,” he says. It worked, and the company bought all this 10 story boards. The A R Rahman-Bharat Bala connection traces back to these ad films, as Bharat recollects the 120-odd commercials he made with the then ‘Dilip Kumar’.
The story of Bharat’s unforgettable music video, Maa Tujhe Salaam came after he realised that he didn’t want to just be selling tyres, but wanted to work on a bigger idea. “We wanted to sell India back to Indians emotionally,” he says, as he recounts how he approached art director Thota Tharrani with his idea and got inspired by Tharrani’s interpretation of the Indian flag. The video was composed with around 200 one-minute films for which he travelled to all corners of the country, from Nagaland to Odisha to Kanyakumari.
“Look inward. And do what fires your imagination,” he told aspiring student film-makers, who lost no time in cheering for actor Dhanush when he played clippings from his first full length feature film, Maryan in 2013.
The fest, that has in the past seen renown film personalities like Balu Mahendra and Gautam Menon, and A R Murugadoss, has lined up a series of talks this year, by famed personalities including upcoming director Kartick Subbaraj, K Bhagyaraj, Atlee Kumar and cinematographer Nirav Shah. The speakers will cover topics like screen writing, making of commercial films and audience expectation.