At the film’s heart is a message about hope, resilience, and finding your way once again when things seem to have hit a dead end. The manner of expressing this is marked by an experimental approach that paints a lovely dreamscape for the viewer. 

As the narrative progresses, we witness dance, music, and gravity-defying weightlessness to portray the driving metaphor of the film. Frugal in dialogue, choosing articulation through movement in space instead, the screenplay presents a seamless intermingling of a voiceover with the visuals. The two conjure a realm that is immersive and otherworldly. 

The end result becomes especially notable in the manner in which it ties dreams, hope, and art together. The brevity ensures that each moment is utilized efficiently, and the message of the film remains lucid in its communication.

Rising: Still Waters  | Spotlight

The film opens on an endearing note as a woman enjoys a playful moment with a little girl. However, a sense of something heavier underlying this situation is also introduced to the viewer. 
 
As we go deeper into the film, it presents to us the very fraught relationship of Arjun and Dhriti. Once college sweethearts who connected and bonded on their shared linguistic and cultural heritage, the two are now at a very crucial juncture in their marriage and relationship. 

Familial and social pressures for an Indian couple in the US, alongside the very real financial demands of contemporary lifestyles and existence, and lastly the cost of dreams, all of these are portrayed for the viewer in a seamless manner. 
 Through snapshots of moments in the relationship that move between the past and the present, bolstered by the background score and performances, the film presents a notable comment on how shared dreams can change over a period of time, and in the process, completely alter the course of a relationship. As for our two characters themselves, while the fate of their love hangs in the balance, there is no definite answer as to what is the right or wrong choice in this equation, and it is fully up to the viewer to decide that for themselves.

Fragments of Us | Spotlight

The film opens with Seo-Won, the protagonist, sharing the day-to-day life of her children with another mother. Despite the superfluous mundaneness of the conversation, the lament of a home left behind in a different country becomes apparent. However, before the viewer can declare the film to be the exploration of immigrant identity, the narrative deliberately fractures itself, presenting us with fragments of memory, thoughts, arguments, and forgotten troubles that lie somewhere buried in a life lived long and hard. 

In the process, familial guilt, anger, resentment, loss, but more importantly, the people who get left behind, alongside those who leave, are conjured by the film. However, how much of the memory can truly be trusted? The film presents the question, while emphasizing how, sometimes, memory, no matter how unreliable a narrator, is the only entity that you have left, the only tenuous connection to an even more fragile notion of home. 

Through a competent screenplay and equally complementary performances, the narrative conjures all of this, and some more. It spans an entire spectrum of identity and belongingness, both ideas disrupted by disorienting thoughts, the causes of this disorientation eventually explained at the end. All of this is then very intimately tied with the protagonist's experience of not only having left behind a home but also the relentless efforts of building one in a foreign land.

Home | Spotlight

The horrors of the film unfold within a limited physical space, and within it, the narrative creates an atmospheric, eerie realm hard to look away from. A hapless man tries to cure his wife of something that is not immediately made clear to the viewer. The story progresses to gradually introduce us to the terrors that lie in wait for the characters. 
The performances bolster the film notably, and the editing and sound together enhance the end result. The short presents a moment of extreme stress and leaves the door open for more such storytelling endeavors, which delve deeper into this world, taking audiences further into the evil that lurks in the shadows. Notwithstanding a hiccup or two, the film is a complete, comprehensive whole in its current form that has all the makings of a horrifying world inhabited by a supernatural, demonic presence sure to linger in the viewer’s consciousness for a while.

Eject The Evil | Spotlight

Mary is a devoted wife and mother who strives to do her best with the cards she is dealt. With a teenage pregnancy that led to her never pursuing a college degree, she now raises her daughter, Annie, with the hope of providing her with all the opportunities she never had. However, the biggest obstacle to her dreams and plans is someone closest to Mary’s heart. By portraying all of this for the viewer, the film introduces us to a terrible reality defined by domestic abuse and oppressive familial control. 

At the heart of this loving and soft mother-daughter equation rests a cruel force in the form of the man of the household, John, who has vastly different plans for his daughter and far more terrible ways of achieving them. By giving us a quick glimpse into this realm of violence, dismissal of individual agency and voice, the narrative conjures a story that makes the viewer pause and truly pay attention. 

 The film presents a world where fear becomes an all-pervasive force to exercise the said control, but also one where the eventual falling pieces carry within a formidable sense of hope. Though a few rough edges remain in terms of narratorial progression, the storytelling, performances, and the intent behind it all make it easy to overlook them. At the film's conclusion rests a crucial story of violence, survival, and resilience.

The Follower | Spotlight

The film presents a mosaic of thoughts, experiences, dreams, and aspirations, as well as vulnerabilities and hurt. The fragments are woven together with the deliberate graininess of the visuals, the many pixels constantly dancing across the screen of this Super 8mm visual landscape, which not only lends the end result a notable texture but also a dreamy quality. 

In her pursuit to find her place within the world, the protagonist addresses a character we never see on screen called Kevin. As her different memories and experiences get painted against this free-flowing canvas, a multitude of emotions are presented to the audience. 
The film achieves all of this in its brief duration, as if distilling an overarching pursuit and the many efforts and streams of consciousness that constitute it. The voice that thus emerges is undiminished and paves the path for more such thematic and ruminative endeavours in the future.

Dear Kevin | Spotlight

Two women are located at the heart of a circuitous reality. As they try to figure out what this strange realm holds for them, and their fate hangs in the balance, a liminal space between life and death comes into existence. The film further develops to reveal that the laws of time and space do not exist here. 

The subsequent story presents a philosophical and reflective rumination on a seemingly arbitrary and obscure realm that is not devoid of the memory, or perhaps an echo, no matter how faint, of what it was to have once loved and be loved in return. 

The characters are portrayed with an unmissable sincerity as the viewer follows them on their path. The final result is engaging, atmospheric, and makes notable use of a physical space to rope in fantasy, symbolism, and a strong voice that should be explored in longer storytelling endeavors with similar themes.

Halfway | Spotlight

The film locates itself in an empty diner, save for a couple and a curious stranger who watches them from afar. As the couple discusses their internal dynamics, the issue of one of them not giving the other one enough attention, a horizon of expectation seems to be forming before the viewer. However, before this thought can go any further, the stranger’s presence becomes too overwhelming for either of them to ignore, and in an even stranger progression of events, he joins them. 

As the conversation now begins to move amidst the three of them, a tight script, marked by something deeply disconcerting right under the surface, takes shape. Thus develops a story of relationships, the secrets they harbour, and how fidelity and the very idea of attention can mould them. No one can be trusted in this realm. 

The narrative presents a single, crisp moment and closes a little too soon, definitely leaving the viewer wanting for more. With its seamless screenplay, skilled performances, and chemistry, it is easy to overlook a slight inconsistency within the sound department.

Additionally, it would be interesting to see the story delve deeper into the lives of the characters in a longer project in the future.

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