Gen Z doesn't have time for advice. Even otherwise, a work of art does not preach. Sajan Kalathil knows this well.
Sajan's "Balloons" a short film won the Best Cause-Driven Film Award, at the world's oldest film festival, Cannes.
"Balloons" explore the theme of drug abuse and the devastation it causes. The movie has no dialogue.
"The key strategy of this film, which I tried, is to remain silent throughout the film. Because I'm fully aware that advising the new generation will only help trigger their skepticism and drive them away from the movie," the cinematographer-cum-commercial film director says.
Speaking to The New Indian Express Online, about his project which would be released shortly, Sajan said, "I visualized the film in such a way that Gen Z could conceive the film in their own way. As a trial… to support this thought, I used drawing instead of writing movie headlines "Balloons".
"To balance the emotional weight of storytelling… more focus was given to the narrative side in the first step of designing the topic. The structure was kept pretentious to have an international outlook, realizing that the social cause is global. Everything was implemented including, storytelling, conceiving a character, designing a character, finding and treating the space, conceiving filmic time for its narrative structure was predesigned and executed. I also experimented to get a drama viewing angle for the audience and utilized a filmic way of narration. In Lighting and cinematography, I planned to get fresh air, fresh light, and lovely nature with lots of colors against the white sky adding the positive mood of the character in the past. In the end, nature was made cloudy, crushed, and dense, to depict the depressive nature of the character," he said.
"I felt that this matter needs to be addressed from my side, the only way to do so was to make a movie to address the adolescents and children to get them out of this menace", he said.
Sajan said that no research has gone into the making of the movie. "Everything came to me out of my experience and observations. I have noticed that evil vibrations tempted children and adolescents to their final Disaster", he says.
Guru Somasundaram
"Balloons" features Tamil actor Guru Somasundaram in the lead role. When asked about that, the director replied, "I personally didn’t have any experience with guru sir. But when I came to know about his theatre experience, very flexible body language, and understanding his fabulous range of emotional expressions by which he could communicate within a short span of time. I got really impressed and wanted him to do my Film…"
When asked about the qualities he looks for in his performers, he said, "I always try to compress the duration of the film to the minimum, just necessary to communicate a story or topic with its emotional feelings. Perhaps because I am more into advertising and cinematography of advertising films, when I search for artists, I also put an eye on their mode of expressional skills in communicating within a shorter span of time. I think that as a filmmaker, I have to be very sharp in all the technical and aesthetic aspects to make a story communicable in a short time. In this film Guru sir’s commitment after conceiving the story and coming to the location with a bearded face helped a lot in communicating the needed time graph."
Awards & SJCC
Sajan Kalathil has won several international awards such as Indie Short Fest Los Angeles and Independent Shorts Awards Los Angeles including Best Cause Driven Film at Cannes World Festival.
He says he was haunted by this social issue for a long time. However, he never thought of making a film about it. The decision came very quickly when Fr. Antony Ethacad, the Managing Director of St Joseph College of Communication (SJCC) offered to make a film on this issue. Fr Ethacad is also the Executive Director of Media Village Group of Institutions, Changanassery in Kerala.
On the Title
Life is like a balloon. Inflate it with goodness- it soars high. The moment you traumatize it - all the charm and colour is gone and it whithers off into nothing.
