From Medicine to Movies

The Heartland Film Festival organisers politely told us that they can’t accommodate flight tickets and other expenses whereas ICFFI is taking care of everything from air fares to food expenses to local transport for eight days

- Satyanshu Singh, director of ‘Tamaash’, which is in the competition for international short films

Most young filmmakers these days have interesting stories to tell about themselves. And one such filmmaker is Satyanshu Singh. He may be a rank newcomer in filmmaking, but his poems in Vikramaditya Motwane’s cult ‘Udaan’ and his number in ‘Ferrari Ki Sawaari’ prove that he is a treasure house of talent. Having made his first film ‘Tamaash’ which is in the competition for international shorts at the ongoing 18th International Children’s Film Festival (ICFFI), the director speaks about how it all began.

“After finishing my school education, I pursued MBBS from Armed Forces Medical College, Pune. I completed Medicine before packing bags to Mumbai to realise my dream. Since my brother Devanshu, who is also the co-director of the ‘Tamaash’, happened to be in mass media, it was a bit easy for me to get into the industry. My brother assists noted director Nikhil Advani.”

Speaking about his 30-minute drama, he shares, “It is about a kid who is under attack from his elders for his poor performance in school. He is repeatedly shown the example of a class topper. What he does to overcome forms the film’s proceedings. We’ve shot the film in Srinagar for two weeks. We shot at a village that even tourist guides are not aware of. The key is to have local contacts and we had 70 locals working for our film.”

‘Tamaash’ has already been part of the international platform. “It was screened at Seattle South Asian Festival, Heartland Film Festival and River To River Florence Indiana Festival. Our film was in the completion at Heartland which is recognised by the Oscar Awards. Winning there was next to getting nominated to Oscars. However, we’ve lost out to ‘The Amber Amulet’ which is competing here too,” he smiles.

While he hasn’t travelled to international festivals despite his movie making it to them, he rates ICFFI as a superior festival. “The Heartland Film Festival organisers politely said that they can’t accommodate flight tickets and other expenses whereas ICFFI is taking care of everything, ranging from air fares to food expense to local transport for eight days. They’ve also called people for representing short films too, which is a great thing in itself,” he says and adds, “Children get to watch the films free of cost unlike the time where we had to pay from our pockets to attend film festivals.”

However, the only complaint the filmmaker has is that his film was screened at Prashanth Theatre in Secunderabad to poor acoustics on November 15. “It was screened to 500 children with almost no volume. They got impatient and showed their displeasure. Thankfully, there were no international delegates that attended the film. In a film festival, the least you can expect is to see your film screened on a right note. Hopefully, those things are taken care of but for now I’m looking forward to see the film with children when it gets screened at IMAX on Tuesday.”

Now that his short film has already been declared a hit at festivals, he is keen to turn a filmmaker along with his brother. “We will be a making a feature film and we are on the lookout for producers. The script is ready and it will be a small yet different kind of film. We want to shoot in Hindi, English and Arabic.”