A one-rupee coin passes through innumerable hands and at the end of the day ends up being the first earnings of a person. The journey of the coin is what the short film Chillara is all about.
“This short film talks of the journey of a one-rupee coin that passes through so many hands in the course of a day. In this ten-minute short film the one-rupee coin plays the central role,” says Gautham Mohan, the director of the short film, and an associate of acclaimed cinematographer and director Santhosh Sivan.
There are characters in this short film shot in 25 real locations of Thiruvanathapuram. “We didn’t cast any artistes in the film except for a couple. We shot the film in the midst of real crowds from Kowdiar to West Fort till Shanmugham. It was a real challenge because we shot the film during Onam when the roads were spilling with humanity. But somehow we made it — thanks to the genius of cinematographer Shakthi,” muses Gautham.
Cinematography by Shakthi is the highlight of the film. “Shakthi and I have been friends for a long time so when we planned this short film, he actually volunteered to crank the camera despite his busy schedule. We decided to shoot amidst real people and identified some of them like a lottery-seller, a beggar and many more. The basic principal we wanted to convey through this short film is that, we all are connected in some way,” says Gautham who is planning a feature film in near future.
Another interesting fact is the absence of dialogue in the movie. The crew used ambient sound under the coordination of sound designers Arun, Vishnu, Saarang and Vignesh. The story will be narrated by Indrajith. The idea of Chillara was crafted by Sandeep and Deepak, the scriptwriters of the recent thriller Escape from Uganda.
“The three most difficult things to get in life are — love, honesty and chillara (change)! Most of us have faced a situation where one is strapped for change. That’s how we developed this idea about a one-rupee coin to teach us the lesson that we are all equals,” says Sandeep, also one of the scriptwriters of this cute little film with a large-hearted message.
The film, produced by Shibu Paul under the banner of Toronto Films, is edited by Sony Sasankan, who has done the promos for Thalaiva, Escape from Uganda and Silence.
