Mumble in the jungle

What happens when a rocker and a gifted actor known for his role as a freedom fighter mash up for a film? They add to a new wave of films called Mumblecore, showing at MAMI this week

A future-telling robot stands before Kartik Krishnan and predicts some truths. Or not. Do you ever trust strange revelations or question your own mental stability? A question that Krishnan perhaps asks himself, when he's at the mercy of the robot. The scene from 26 year-old director Srinivas Sunderrajan's new film, The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project, examines the blurry line between reality and fiction.


A scene from The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project

The independent film, written and directed by Srinivas Sunderrajan will screen at the the city's film festival MAMI. The film was showcased at the Asian Hot Shots festival in Berlin and the South Asian International Film Festival, New York.

The plot follows lead character Kartik Krishnan, a website coder who approaches a director, a character based on Sunderrajan himself, to make a small independent film. The film tracesu00a0 Krishnan's journey peppered with some uncanny characters such as a menacing stalker and future-telling robot. "Everyone worked without pay so we had to schedule our shoots around timings around everyone's had their day jobs.

We shot for about two hours per day and the film took 30 days to complete, but this was over the span of one year," says the director who's previous films include Tea Break, and Vaapsi, which won the Grand Jury award at MAMI 2008.

First-time cinematographer and freelance photographer Hashim Badani says of the 74-minute film,u00a0 "Making the film on a low budget meant we worked around locations in the early hours and without permission. I shot part of the film at my grandmother's house in Bhendi Bazaar. "

The plot was created for a niche audience and the script is partly based on real incidents, says Sunderrajan. Working with a flexible script, most characters play themselves as in the case of Kartik Krishnan and Swara Bhaskar; Vishwesh K of Mumbai rock band Scribe plays the character of Srinivas Sunderrajan. You'll probably recognise actor D Santosh (The Legend of Bhagat Singh) too.

On: October 26, 5.45 pm
At: Mumbai Academy of Moving Images (MAMI), 49/50, Maruti Chambers, 3rd Floor, Fun Republic Lane, Off Veera Desaiu00a0 Extn. Road, Andheri (W)
Call: 4016 8223