Hyderabad: Four years ago Jennifer Alphonse saw a snippet in a newspaper about a taxi driver helping his passenger. A year later, she wrote a script based on the same lines but lack of funding forced her to put her plans on hold. Three years later, not only is her Telugu film Strangersss ready but it will also be screened on May 14 at Cannes, under the Short Film Corner section.
When asked about the three extra ‘S’ in the film’s title, Jennifer laughs, “Everyone is curious about it. But you will find out the reason only after watching the film.”
Jennifer, a Tamilian, born and brought up in Hyderabad, says, “I wanted to direct films, but I didn’t work on it. My father wanted to become a director too, but he couldn’t. It was only after his death that my passion to become a director awoke.”
A few years after her schooling, Jennifer joined the theatre group Sutradhar in the city. That was when life changed completely. “I had acted, directed, written scripts and had also done backstage work. This was where life began to change for me. I met director Krishna Vamsi through Vinay Varma and I worked as an assistant director for his film, Danger, in 2005. But director Teja advised me to finish my education first and come back to make films,” she says.
Jennifer’s mother, too, wanted her to focus on her education and was against her daughter becoming a director. So, she took a break from films, finished her education and came right back to films in 2008 as the AD for the film Om Shanti; she later went on to work with Jr NTR in the film Shakti.
Talking about her 26-minute film, Jennifer says. “The film has two characters. A Hyderabadi taxi driver and a Russian passenger, who is leaving for Russia. On their way to the airport, they start talking, the driver is in awe of her. But the night takes a scary turn when the girl gets into some trouble. How the driver helps her, whether he is able to save her, forms the remaining story.”
Jennifer’s first short film, Kachra, a movie on the life of street children, had won her three Nandi Awards in 2010, but despite that, she had a tough time raising funds for Strangersss. “My film cost around '3.5 lakh. I had met many people from T’town, but no one wanted to fund my film,” she explains. In order to save money, Jennifer started working on other projects.
“On one such project, I met NRI Basi Reddy, the CEO of Digiquest. One day, he came up to me and asked why I looked tense and after I told him about my problem, he told me to start the film and not worry about the money,” she smiles. “My film has a lot to offer. There are many CG effects too. The movie would’ve cost around Rs 15 lakh but the VFX companies, Primefocus, LightLine and Digiquest, helped a lot, so we could save on the cost,” says Jennifer who had to sell her jewellery because she couldn’t get the funds initially.
