Manorath, which translates to desire or heart's hope, is a lovely, quiet story about an overlap of urban and rural sensibilities, the fleeting moment when they seem to have reached a common plane and the swift shattering of this space. The storytelling adopted to communicate the thought is not one marked by garishness or loud devices. Instead, in the same vein as that of a soulful Rabindranath Tagore narrative, for it is indeed The Postmaster by him that serves as the inspiration for the short film, it conveys its intentions and motivations. When a photographer visits a village for a work project, he finds himself striking an unlikely friendship with a ten-year-old girl. The latter helps the former make some sense of a territory formerly unknown to him where the only pass-time available is to visit a nearby river. However, despite his sleek gadgets and experiences of a city-life, he is unable to grasp how little these things mean for a girl who only seeks friendship and affection, and not any material gains he might secure for her. The film is notably lucid in conveying the same, leaving no doubt in the viewer's mind about its core message, in the process, allowing itself to be a successful final result.

Manorath | Short Film of the Day

Several stories in media and cinema have endeavored to portray Mumbai and everything that it harbors within its many folds. Welcome to Mumbai is one such attempt that makes a protagonist out of the city itself when it's viewed from the point of view of an outsider. The duration of the film, at the same time, becomes the trajectory of his journey from being an outsider to one of Mumbai's own. 

 Lallan, a wide-eyed, gullible man from Uttar Pradesh, finds himself making his way into the city of dreams. On his first day itself, he is delegated an important errand, one that also gives us the MacGuffin of the plot - a bag that has to be delivered to someone seemingly important. When Lallan arrives to deliver the parcel, a delay causes him to wander around to kill time, and thus begins a set of misadventures he is not prepared for. 

 As the narrative moves back and forth and shares his experiences of the day, it invokes all the quintessential elements of the city - from local trains to free advice from strangers to a rocky seaside to the infamous lack of time and its constant mention in conversations. However, naive, unsuspecting Lallan, who has just begun to step out of his native state, finds himself on terribly shaky grounds. As his innocence soon turns to paranoia and cynicism, the film finally reveals its cards, but will the revelation be for better or worse?

Welcome to Mumbai | Short Film of the Day

The title is very interesting, the film is a love letter to the self. This ‘self', however, isn’t an already
consolidated, secure, stable whole, but a germ of the same that is still growing, evolving. This
exploration happens through the questions that the protagonist asks – of himself, of the city,
of the viewer, and also perhaps, the larger universe that he posits this ‘self’ in relation to. All
these questions are bubbling inside the mind of the protagonist. On the exterior, the shots of a
motionless sky, and a racing underground metro, visually map the landscape of the city. 
It seems like a film of quiet introspection, until a girl enters the scene and disturbs its equilibrium. Following that, it becomes something else completely. Do the same questions still remain or do they attain a new
meaning for the self when it comes in contact with another? The viewer is left to ponder.

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