BENGALURU: Prataya Saha is a happy man these days. His short film, The Good Wife, has been winning awards and recognition within the country and outside, the latest one being in Toronto last week. The short film, made by him earlier this year won an award in the best actress segment of the short category at the Continental Film Festival.
“As an independent filmmaker, all I had is my belief in the film we were making,” Saha says about the film that also won an award at the Alternative Film Festival in Toronto, Chicago Southland International Film Festival, and multiple awards at the Vipra International Film Festival, Kochi. The Good Wife was also the official selection at Bengaluru International Film Festival, and the Wow Film Festival, Tunisia.
“But I couldn’t have imagined that it would win the audience choice award for best film in Chicago, best thriller film in Toronto, and four awards in India. I didn’t anticipate this much love pouring in,” says Saha, 33, who has been an independent filmmaker for three years. Though the 17-minute film takes place over the course of one day, the entire process of planning and shooting took 11 months, and began in May last year. “We wanted to make a short film with feature film quality,” he explains.
The story is set in December 1992, against the backdrop of riot-stricken Kolkata, and follows the life of a housewife who realises her love for her husband was not being reciprocated. “A lot of work went into this film. For example, we didn’t have the budget for a sound technician. So we had to create the foley sounds by breaking down the 17-minute film into 30-second segments and then recreating the sounds for the scenes,” recalls Saha.
This process alone took six months and cost the team `35,000. The film was funded by Anshulika Kapoor, the film’s protagonist and the owner of Red Polka Productions. “We didn’t want the quality of the film to suffer but had to manage this with a minimum budget, which required a lot of planning,” says Saha, who is currently in the process of sending the film to various film festivals.
Money matters
With multiplexes beyond reach, film festivals are the only avenue for independent filmmakers to showcase their work, says Saha. But even for this, you need to shell out the festival entrance fee. “We want to give it to as many as festivals as possible, but most have an entrance fee of USD 20-30. But the risk lies in the fact that there’s no guarantee of selection. Some of them have an acceptance rate of just 10 per cent,” explains Saha, who is now organising a fundraising campaign to raise Rs 98,000 to be able to send the film for various festivals. “The plan is to send it to 200-300 festivals. Making a film, unfortunately, isn’t enough. You need money for more exposure,” he adds.