BENGALURU: While truth is something that can never be changed, you sometimes need different approaches to find out what the real deal is. Short filmmaker Sachin Doshi’s latest movie Ajatashatru has the potential to be a nail-biting watch with the storyline including various twists and turns. The short film revolves around a conversation between a journalist and police officer about a money laundering case. The 35-minute movie is releasing on June 3 on 4 Angry Men Films, a YouTube channel, but will be available only for 48 hours before it is pulled down.
Usually a fan of psychological thrillers, Doshi has been working on this plot for the past two years and was inspired by days when he worked as an engineer at an automotive manufacturer. “While working at Toyota, we used to get accident-damaged automobile machines. Many of the owners would lie about the reasons behind the accident. But as an engineer, my job was to investigate the machine and find out the real reason. If I believed the owner at the first instance, I would not have known the truth,” says 29-year-old Doshi, adding that he wanted to use that persistence as a catalyst for the plot of his film.
While the first half of the movie seems like a regular conversation where the victim is narrating his story, the second half has a twist in the tale where the real reasons surface. “Asking the right questions is important. The journalist in the movie does the same which turns into a trigger for the cop in the movie to tell the truth,” says Doshi, adding that he wishes to show the movie to actor Sheetal Shetty, who was a journalist before entering the world of movies.
The reason why he is releasing the crowdfunded project first on YouTube is to show it to those who helped him in the funding of the project. “In 2021, while working on my short film Alghol, a psychological thriller, which was screened at eight national and international festivals, I realised the cost of making films like these. Some friends and family who had seen and liked my work previously, helped me in the funding,” says Doshi, adding that the movie cost him around R3.3 lakh. The movie was shot in three locations in the city — Basavanagudi, JP Nagar and Kengeri. “While shooting the movie, we got into the
second lockdown, so we had to pick three different spots,” explains Doshi.