LONG WAY TO GO BUT WITH A HOPE

The scenario of short films in North-East India is growing slowly. No doubt upcoming filmmakers and students do make short films occasionally but not with the same euphoria we see in the environment of Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore or Kolkata.

The main problem here is the lack of awareness or willingness to experiment new concepts or to understand what is going on in terms of technicalities used in making a short film. 

If you look at the content resource in North-East India, it’s plenty but our filmmakers need to explore and utilize to incorporate its culture to exhibit outside.

The exhibition platform now exists in Guwahati with few Independent festivals. But the quality of short films made or entered in these exhibition formats is very poor.

The question is why? The answer to this question is very contradictory because the makers of these short films are not well versed with the process of filmmaking or do not understand what are the trends going on in the current market of short film scenario or make short films just for the sake of making it. Another problem is that filmmakers do not use the opportunity to watch work of other countries or filmmakers when a film festival is organized in Guwahati.

If we ignore all these demerits, there is some handful of good work to be seen by some short filmmakers or budding filmmakers in Assam, the short films like Bibhranta Electron (Deluded Electron) by Deepjyoti Handique, Line Between You and Me is Blink by Rakesh Gogoi, Jubraj Baruah & Nipan Talukdar are some of the notable works that can be viewed and encouraged in terms of concept, technique and quality.

With digitalization, the making of short film has increased in the past few years but the problem is that people who do not understand the business of filmmaking are entering the market. Still we lack behind in terms of commercialization of short films and an effort to build an independent industry of short films in true sense.

If we try to remove dust from our film documents or books, many of us will not know the fact that India’s first short film was reported to be Flower Of Persia made in the year 1898 by Hiralal Sen. Almost 114 years have passed but short films in India is still considered to be in a nascent stage. Still we are nowhere to be compared near to the billion dollar industry of short films in countries like Spain, Australia, USA, UK to name a few.

In short, we can say that the scenario here in terms of short film looks promising but with a hope that filmmakers and film lovers will soon open up to join the rich culture of short films globally.

(Views by Prithish Chakraborty, Co-Founder & Filmmaker, Creovaent Production)
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