KOCHI: When the need for value education and gender education at schools is being much discussed, the students of CKG Memorial Higher Secondary School (CKGMHSS), Chingapuram in Kozhikode shows the virtues inherent among the children when human values are deteriorating from the society through their debut short film Aadyem Poothyem.
The film produced under the aegis of Thira the film club of the school will be released soon. Maneesh Yathra, a teacher at the Cheekkilode U P School, Ayanchery is the director of the film.
The film in which a group of children brings a person branded as mad by others back to life also focuses on the society’s role in inculcating gender differences among the children.
“Why can't a boy and girl just be friends?” is what Adhi, the lead character of the film whose friends are all boys often asks in the film.
Through the similar experiences of the children as well as the mad man in this regard, the film shows the unchanged attitude of society including educated people towards the relationship between male and female over the years.
The name Aadyem Poothyem itself deals with the new (puthiya) and old (aadya) generations where there is no development in the view of the people.
“Even the teachers at schools often misunderstand the relationship between boys and girls,” opined Maneesh Yathra.
“The film is being produced to introduce the students the technical side of cinema,’ said Maneesh who having directed a few short films was hired by the authorities at CKGMHSS to provide the students an exposure on film making.
“They were exposed to all the areas behind a film making process including shooting, camera techniques editing and dubbing,” he added
“We also intended to provide an acting opportunity for the students at the school by producing the film,” said K Sajith, the teacher in-charge of the film production.
The majority of the characters in the story were performed by the students from classes V to XI and the casting was done based on an audition performed during a camp organized by Thira during the summer holidays.
“Working with children was a nice experience and all the children have performed well in the film. They had even shown outstanding performances in certain scenes,” said Maneesh.
“The only thing we require to work with children is patience as they take time to get familiar with acting,” he opined. “I took seven days in completing the shooting which would have completed in five days with experienced actors," he observed. Meanwhile, with the production of the short film, cinema is no more something just for entertainment for the children. They have started observing the technical side of other films too.
“I can now identify different shots, scenes and sequences in films. My notion about films changed with the film-making experience before which I used to think that the films were shot in the same order as we see it,” said Krishnendu, a class XI student who performed the character of Adhi in the film.”
“With the production, we came to know the difficulties involved in making a film,” opined Roshan, who also performed a major role in the film. The story and screen play of the short film was written by K Ranjith and Pramod Babu handled the camera.