CHANDRAHEEN by KHUJLI COLLECTIVE
Supported by ThinkArts Grant 2022
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For Ages 16 and above
24 mins | Hindi |
This is the tale of a large bull in an Indian village that goes rogue one day. They say that when such bulls let an uncontrollable urge take over themselves, they are impossible to tame again and become of no use to humans who otherwise need them for farm work. The film consists of six original poems and one song, all in Hindi. In the story, they have been penned by our protagonist who tries to recreate his nightly experiences and understand his journey through them.
So, in one way, our bull is an anti-hero, and his journey is a dark tale of the havoc he causes after going rogue. But as we gradually come to understand it, this is also his quest to find meaning after letting this strange, overpowering urge take over himself. Through his journey, we see that he becomes increasingly interested in stray objects that are abandoned in different city spaces. These include large concrete pipes, broken down trucks, old advertisement boards, etc. Being all but useless, he believes that these will lead him to what he is looking for, which is the end of the world. But the search for these same useless objects leads him to the heart of a lively “Chor Bazaar”, a second hand flea market where such objects are flaunted rather than overlooked. Here, in the midst of a place where all the strayed and lost are reshaped again and again to become something more, he finds his new home. The story then, is not about the end, but about another beginning. The bull’s overpowering emotion will find resonance with the darkness that young people in their teenage years often times feel and cannot make any sense of. We hope to address those phases of feeling undesirable or hopeless in an engaging tale. Through the narrative of the bull’s mysterious encounters and their reflections in his poems, we want to speak about the value of creation in the darkest of times. In the end, it is an allegorical tale about finding beginnings again and again, and being able to give second life to things by looking at them a little differently. |
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Credits:
Khujli Collective Adheep Das: Direction, Animation, Editing (Additional roles include Art Direction, Storyboarding, Character Design, 3D Modelling) Shivpal Singh Kang: Sound Recording, Design and Music Avanti Basargekar: Script and Poetry Bhanu Pratap: Voice Actor Supported by the ThinkArts Grant 2022 |
We are a collective of students from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. We came to work together on our academic film projects in our first year. Soon after, our collaboration extended to our projects beyond academic work. While AVANTI and ADHEEP are Direction and Screenplay Writing students, GOKUL specializes in Editing. Together, we have experience in writing, camera work, editing, and animation. We seek different kinds of stories and narratives and love to bring them to life through various forms and media. We look forward to creating such stories for young audiences.
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