A fixed frame takes us into the life of a boy who converses with a friend we don't see on screen. The exchange begins with mundane things like school crushes, imminent tests and assignments, and so on. However, gradually the tone acquires a gravity that begins to give way to darker developments - divorce, separation, anger, and lastly, violence. 
The narrative's journey through each of these points is smooth. The young team exhibits deep potential and dedication towards storytelling. Perhaps a gradual, longer project would have allowed a more organic development of events, because some points get lost in the pacing of the narrative. However, the film still succeeds in weaving a notable plot within its limited space, before finally presenting it to the viewer.

Maine Kal Ek Sapna Dekha | Short Film Nominee

The film is an appealing story, primarily about a date between two eponymous characters, Dhruv and Taara. The date has been set by their families, introducing them as a prospective match for marriage. The common thread that ties the two characters together is astrology. However, they are both on extremely differing ends when it comes to their opinions on the same. While one of them has deep devotion and faith in it, the other sees the divine and karma as more powerful forces. 
The conversation that develops thereafter is marked by endearment, shared, mutual affection and a charming love story that is simply waiting to happen.

Dhruv Taara | Short Film Nominee

The film is quiet and calm in its approach, marked by its complete absence of dialogues. It takes the viewer into an interaction with two parallel timelines that develop simultaneously. While a young girl struggles with a reality that has confined her indoors, the older woman, perhaps located in a time in the future, far away from a pandemic-ridden world, is shown looking into space when she is reminded of something. Both characters are then located in the same room, albeit at different points of time, as the reach for the same drawer. Fishing out a notebook, they have a story each that they want to put on paper. While the child is expected to have something that would be a direct echo of her locked down reality, what would the woman write after all these years?

Dear Elixir | Short Film Nominee

Jagdish is a devoutly religious man who dreams of one day making it big in the world. He works at his job as a guard and aspires to ride the bullet train, a metaphor for the course he hopes his life will take. At the same time, another strange reality is unfolding. His dreams have begun to serve as premonitions, alerting him of the occurrences in the lives of those around him. 

The film presents ideas of predestination, and fate, and raises the question if one is truly capable of changing the future, even after knowing what it holds. Despite a few rough edges sticking their head out in terms of narratorial progression, the film explores all of these ideas with sincerity and committment.

Adrishya | Short Film Nominee

The viewer is taken fifty years into a dim and uninviting future, where a haphazardly-evacuated modern house and a traditional set of mat and cushion rest before them. A disoriented protagonist wakes up from his deep sleep and inspects the strange surroundings where even his appearance seems foreign to him. Meanwhile, alerts regarding a natural calamity, which is potentially apocalyptic, goes off in the background. 
The alerts being in English, perhaps, seem incomprehensible to the protagonist who struggles to understand the sequence of events. As the stakes rise and the end approaches, the most important development, followed by a crucial revelation, is presented to the audience. Due to another unexpected set of events, relief follows into the narrative, along with the ushering of an amicable territory - the land of Kannada.

Yuddham | Short Film Nominee

We always understand time as a linear concept, not taking into account any fluidity that might come to define it. It is precisely this that the short film explores, turning the linearity of the passage of time topsy-turvy. As future bleeds into the past and vice-versa, a character is left with a bewildering, overwhelming reality. Incomprehensible at first, he finally learns what is happening to him, thereby allowing himself the chance to master it. Afflicted with a condition called Futurae, he is never allowed a moment of present, existing only in his past and the future. What follows next is a complex ride marked by violence, difficult decisions and important developments that would determine the course of the rest of the protagonist's life.

Futurae (F19) | Short Film Nominee

Tragedy, love and loss are crucial to the narratorial development of this short animated story. The many forms that they take, to eventually lead to uncontrollable rage and revenge, form the backbone of the plot. The temporal location of the narrative is in a dystopian, futuristic reality where the planet has been reduced to an unliveable state. Amidst the struggle to survive in the face of immense environmental destruction and deterioration, along with the iron grasp of institutions which leave little room for the individual to breathe, is also a story of personal loss. The final result is one of dedication to storytelling, even if showing a want of little more lucidity in some places. Having said that, it leaves the path open for more similar projects which strive to make metaphorical comments about contemporary reality.

Graves for Your Gods | Short Film Nominee

A person's imagination is a very powerful tool indeed, and the film attempts to highlight the same truth. It takes us into the life of a man who is trying to study a complex subject. However, his mind keeps wandering in all kinds of directions. The viewer is allowed to participate in each of these fantasies, which almost always end disastrously. These thoughts, in turn, enable the protagonist to truly understand the consequences of all his potential actions. Will this internal, mental engagement allow him to finally choose the correct path? The film has the answer ready for the audience.

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