Alappuzha native AJ, short for Arun Joseph, is a happy man. His short films have so far bagged two awards at the Rode International Film Festival in Australia, arguably the largest short film festival in the world. While AJ’s three-minute film ‘Spirit of Kerala’ won the award in the People’s Choice category last year making him the first Asian to be bestowed the honour, his latest project ‘Humans of Kerala’ has brought home the accolade again. AJ has also become the first filmmaker to have won the award consecutively in the festival’s history.
‘Humans of Kerala’ is based on the Covid-19 mitigation efforts in Kerala. “It’s the story of our land’s survival,” says AJ. His friend Arjunan helmed the cinematography. “What people need is hope and positivity. That’s what we tried to portray through our project,” adds AJ. The young filmmaker is pleasantly surprised with his win as the jury received around 4,000 entries.
“It’s a huge honour. ‘Humans of Kerala’ was planned in between discussions of another project. We shot the visuals across Palakkad and Alappuzha. We had to tackle many obstacles including police intervention to complete the shoot,” says AJ.
AJ and Arjunan are now planning a science-fiction project which is intended as an OTT release. “I grew up watching movies like ‘Jurassic Park’ and ‘Anaconda’. I have always been fond of fantasy films. This will be a one of a kind project. We are employing virtual reality technology,” says AJ.
AJ met Arjunan through ‘Film Ferry’, an online collective set up by him for aspiring filmmakers and technicians. “I couldn’t attend a film school. There are many who aspire to be in movies, but are unable to make it due to many limitations. They could use our facilities and can collaborate with us on our projects,”he adds.