Silly Sheep is a poignant engagement with the existential angst of a young boy tied to the desk of a seemingly mundane job. As he goes about his life, rehearsing and performing the same activities over and over again, the futility of this rut leaves him unable to attach any significance to life. Tied in an endless web of civil norms and social etiquettes, the protagonist, skilfully played by Arnav Bhasin, asks the jarring question, "Do I really exist?" There is much that goes on in the short duration of this film - from a dull job to a stolen car to a near death accident - yet the struggle to find any meaning in existence remains unchanged throughout. When you see someone you see every day, maybe in a lift, at a platform or outside a building, do you ignore them or do you lend any relevance to their existence and, in the process, to yours? This is the question this DLP production, written and directed by Pranav Bhasin, leaves you with.

Silly Sheep | Short Film of the Day

Sravaka is an extremely successful dancer who is in want of nothing. Fame, success, and recognition lie at her feet, and yet, something disturbs her deeply. 

Unable to sleep or eat, she finds herself taking refuge in pills and constantly rushing back to her past. Her frequent visits to her guru ji, one whose existence is marked by poverty and isolation, push forth the narrative as it engages with philosophical questions regarding an artist’s relationship with their art, the fear of anonymity, the eternal quest for immortality, and what it means to achieve worldly success, even if at the cost of being dishonest as an artist. These ideas are portrayed with a close-knit union with dance sequences, crafted, choreographed, and performed most seamlessly and gracefully. 

There is further an earnest desire to explore the darker realm of success, especially for a dancer who is not only of a different nationality than her art form but has also seen turbulence in her former life. While a few raw edges appear in terms of the screenplay and the visual representation of some of the exchanges between the characters, the film’s core remains devoted throughout in its effort to seek meaning in existence and success vis-a-vis art.

Slow Rivers | Short Film Nominee

The film is a man’s internal monologue shown through the sights and scenes he observes every day. It is
a conversation with his alter ego, as he moves from one thought to another, looking for a purpose in life. He is grappling
with his past, the present, the future and the person he
wants to be. The film attempts to employ a choreographed sequence marked by its shadows to invoke the visual of the internal conflicts one might be struggling with, along with supplementing the entirety of the narrative with a voiceover. Consequently, the question, "Who am I?", takes existential, philosophical and experiential forms in this short.

Who Am I | Short Film Nominee

The film is a man’s quest to find answers to the question - who is the real me? Through an internal
monologue, he searches for his identity: is it the one he fashioned himself, or the one moulded and formed by
society? He wanders through the lanes of memory, nostalgia and past looking for clues, instances,
pointers. Ultimately, settling with the acceptance that there is no such thing as an absolute way to be. In the process, the film thus becomes an engagement with the inner confusions and questions of a person, that eventually find some sort of a closure or an answer, allowing the narrative to achieve completion.

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