Meraki, a Greek word with no English counterpart, refers to that part of an artist's being, their soul, essence, that they invest in their creative endeavor. Consequently, the horizon of expectation that the short film sets for you suggests an exploration of the creative process, the artist's relationship with his work, and perhaps, the completion of a project he is portrayed to be struggling with in the first few minutes of the film. 
However, the viewer is deliberately kept unaware of the deeply disconcerting events the narrative instead is moving towards. Yes, it will be a story about writing and creating, but would it be in the manner you expect it to be? 

As the protagonist's preoccupation with a twisted idea of creativity continues to overpower his relationship with writing, the film soon becomes a thriller that does not take refuge in the shadowy world of dim-lit visuals. Instead, this is a realm of sunlight and bright frames, allowing it to accentuate its core intentions. It is not a story marked by a single, grand act of violence per se on which rides everything, instead, it is its execution and the build-up leading to it that forms the most notable aspect of the film, further enabling it to achieve all that it had set out to.

Meraki | Short Film of the Day

The short film opens on a note marked by a sense of foreboding that would come to mark the entirety of the narrative. It shows stylistic zeal, enhanced by seamless editing and competent visuals that allow the story to truly amplify its unease and disconcertment for the viewer. Smooth transitions in between scenes blend into each other with a headiness that further helps to pronounce the mental and emotional struggles of the protagonist on his way back after an unexpected visit to presumably his therapist. Additionally, the visuals employ a play with colours and light to allow the spectator a glimpse into the suffocation and the sense of isolation the protagonist is battling. While the film is a notable achievement of skill and technique, it only offers a cause, and not an effect with regards to its protagonist's life and motivations. If the team decides to explore the latter, it would perhaps be an endeavour to look forward to.

Lone | Short Film of the Day

Soon after Om and Amit experiment with DMT, the chaotic, disorienting ride of ‘Into the Mind’ (a play on the phrase about entering a suggested wilderness?) begins. A clandestine ritual with a shaman is coupled with the drug that soon leaves the two men losing a hold on their sanity. Their tryst begins with heady ideas of spirituality, otherworldly creatures, a pursuit of the meaning of existence, with death being a constant thematic concern throughout. The film’s strongest aspect is its storytelling, and the visual experiments it adopts to portray it. It would have been interesting to see different choices for the background score, especially in the second half when it becomes reminiscent of a very iconic television series, perhaps potentially taking away a little from all that the film has to offer in its own uniqueness and individuality. On the whole, nevertheless, the end result remains earnest, dedicated and deeply engaging for the viewer.

Into the Mind | Short Film Nominee

Essentially, the film is a conversation that a character has with the voices inside his head, and the terrible consequences they lead him to. Since its title comes from an ancient symbol that stands for the cyclicality of existence, it also becomes a story about the inability to break out of this cycle and everything it has come to stand for for the protagonist. When the narrative begins, it has already established its tone for the viewer. The quiet ruminations of the film's only character lead you by the hand into the rest of the mess he has made for himself. However, will he be able to find a path out of this or would the truth of the film's title entrench its presence in his reality as well?

Uroboros: A Cycle Of Life, Death Rebirth | Short Film Nominee

The short film is an engaging psychological thriller that takes us into a night in Sid and Meera's life. The opening of the narrative establishes not only Meera’s profession as an environmental conservationist, but also her beliefs and ideas towards animals, and humans' relationship with them. However, the beginning marks the onset of something else as well- Sid’s disturbing fixation with a centipede Meera did not let him kill that night. 

As Sid’s sanity spirals into absolute chaos, he loses all sense of night and day, reality and dreams, and begins to see the worm everywhere. The story and its premise is a unique one, sure to capture the viewer’s attention. The writing further ropes in relationship dynamics, eventually tying the narrative with the suggestion that the love shared between two people, no matter how tormented or disoriented, always remains an integral component of their lives.

Human | Short Film Nominee

The film wants to engage with the overlap of the holy and the unholy, and the reckoning that arrives in the wake of such a union. The story is about a holy man who also works as a health professional. The film is located in the world of the pandemic when COVID-19 had our lives tightly in its grasp. 

A reticent, quiet man during the day, the protagonist has a parallel reality he subscribes to in the shadows when no one is watching. Alongside this are headlines of desecration of dead bodies as the pandemic rages on. All of these elements are tied in a manner that exhibits potential. Storytelling and writing both show promise, even if a little impeded by the overall production value of the final result.

Clutch of the Dissatisfied | Short Film Nominee

Borrowing its name from the famous M Night Shyamalan thriller, Split presents us with a story that deals with a similar theme as well - a protagonist who battles dissociative identity disorder. As we are taken into his world, we realise the precarious balance on which his life rests, after having been isolated from everything else, owing to the hallucinatory image of a man that plagues him now. The film is marked by the repetitive appearance of the character who represents the protagonist's hallucination, making it a shared experience between two people. The presence of the same face as before makes it unclear what the true intentions of the film are - is it dealing only with a mental disorder which is specific and unique to each individual, or is it conveying that after witnessing a traumatic experience another person suffers from a fracture in his cognition too? Or is the hallucination simply a metaphor for inner demons that acquire a corporeal form for its characters? The film would have benefited from more lucidity on some of these questions that it raises.

Split | Short Film Nominee

The film wants to weave a thrilling plot marked by psychosis, insanity and violence. It explores all of these elements by taking the viewer into the story of a girl and the strangeness of her experiences. A scene of romance and intimacy in a restaurant is soon changed into one defined by violence of a nightmarish reality. Matters then develop in an attempt to engage the viewer further with the plot, before finally revealing the truth (or the lack of it) of the situation during a heightened climax.

Boomerang  | Short Film Nominee

The short narrative aims to delineate it’s protagonist’s extreme fear of mirrors, or any reflecting surfaces for that matter. This is further tied with a similarly overwhelming relationship with his own reflection as well as the strange reality that exists within this world of reflections and mirrors. 'He' comes across as a zealous endeavor in conjuring a world that is marked by its disconcerting truths, and therefore signs up to be an ambitious project. It would be a welcome prospect to see some of the rough edges of the visual progression smoothened and a tighter control on complexity of performances, especially when it comes to portrayal of death by the actors involved.

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