MYSURU: Mysurean Pramod Raghuvara's joy knew no bounds on hearing that his movie 'Unseen Hands-Kaanada Kaigalu' had cracked the top 10 in the national short film contest on 'Patriotism: Marching towards Atmanirbharta' conducted by the Ministry of Broadcasting and Information and NFDC.
The three-minute movie stresses that farmers also offer a significant service to the country, similar to the Army and medical staff, but their work remains unseen. The movie has been shot in and around Mysuru and Sagarakatte village.
The movie revolves around three characters -- a farmer, a techie who has lost his job and an MNC employee who is now a farmer contributing to the country's food supplies. The characters have been played by Dilip Rai, Neeraj Gagan and Saugandh Nakkarike.
Pramod said this was his first attempt at entering a film for a competition and receiving the honour of a special mention certificate for making it into the top 10 was a pleasant surprise.
“We started this concept discussion over a phone conference call and finalised the story. We completed the shooting in three days and the entire movie was ready for upload within five days. We had no expectations our short movie will make it into the top 10. When we received a call from the NFDC jury about the results, we wre not just happy but also shocked,” added Pramod.
“Farming is also a way of serving our country. Lakhs of farmers are feeding 130 crore Indians. During the lockdown period, we did not face any shortage of food. Farmers are like unseen hands and their efforts are not noticed. Thus to pay a small tribute to them, we came up with this concept,” he added.
Pramod is a civil engineer by profession. He is practising theatre skills from Mandya Ramesh of Natana School of Theater Arts. He is also a voiceover artist for Akashavani Mysuru.
In all, there were 866 entries for the national-level short movie competition. The results were announced on August 21 by Prakash Javadekar, Minister of Broadcasting and Information, on Twitter.
Over 1,800 people have watched the movie on YouTube since its upload a week ago. To watch the movie, go to https://youtu.be/Nfir7QDeEqU