Kunal Vohra had his film screened at Mumbai railway stations
Kunal Vohra is a Delhiite. On visits here, he noticed that a company called Digital Signage Networks (DSN Global) mounted all the footage at screens across railway stations. He contacted them and got Snow Globe, his film on global warming, screened. In Delhi, he managed it through League One, which had around a thousand LCD screens at various outlets across Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida, Punjab and Bangalore.
"Being on the Net also helps. Besides YouTube, Google Video and Metacafe, etc, you can put up your film on your blog," he says. His film got noticed by Earth Day Network from the US and has been invited by Greenpeace India for the Global Citizens' Climate Change & Water Film Festival which takes place in Bangalore this month.
Adeya Rajan got his film screened on his university campus
Adeya Rajan's official screening of his film The Final Stroke was at Mumbai's film club Shamiana, but he has screened it before to his friends. Adeya says, "There's a big umbrella, it doesn't have to be documentaries and feature films," he says. "My foundation is painting and cinema is an extension of my poetry and my consciousness. I feel that I am discovering things and cinema is a beautiful way of doing that."
Kunal Kocchar put his film online
Kunal Kocchar has done short format film travelogues on Zurich, Budapest, Mumbai and Himachal Pradesh to name a few. Kocchar says an apt way to get your films watched is the Internet. "The web gives you more platform than television; this is a 'push' market and content gets its viewership." Kunal used the website www.nautankitv.com as viewing space for his film on the Sziget Festival called Vibe. His work was seen as too niche a word that comes up often when speaking with short filmmakers â for television. Kunal and his business partner Laszlo have their own production set up called Scratch N Stuff.
Ravi Shankar had his film screened at colleges
Ravi Shankar made a short clay animation film he made called Grace the Human Race. The premise: Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa come back to life and organise a peace music concert. Eminem, Elvis Presley, Daler Mehendi and others take part. His first screening was at Symbiosis, Pune where Grace the Human Race won the best film.
Ravi, a former BMM student, says, "Colleges are becoming a good place to be screened because of courses like BMM and various fests." Another fest that concentrates on films is SIES Nerul's festival called Frames Film Festival. He also mentions the BYOF (Bring Your Own Film) festival on the beaches of Puri. BYOF also takes on musicians and theatre acts. Anyone can show his or her work here.
Sumit Roy got his first film sent to Cannes and other festivals
Sumit Roy says, "I was making corporate films and documentaries. The company that I was working for sent in a couple of entries to MIPCOMâ¦" and his was chosen. It's quite something to have your film first screened at a festival in Cannes. Sumit Roy's Dancing Queen shot on a Nokia cell phone has journeyed through various festivals owing to its simplicity and novelty: The MIPCOM Mobile and Internet Awards, Cannes, Toronto Mobifest 2007, Pangea Day Global Broadcast, 2008, Hollywood and the Sardinia Film festival, 2008.
Subhadra had her first film screened at Shamiana
Despite the short film industry making a massive boom in India, Subhadra, a former short filmmaker, had her first movie Rehguzar filmed at Shamiana feels "It's not very easy. They say that the medium is opening, but you can't sustain yourself with short films. The scene here is niche; to increase viewership, innovative ways to screen the movies have to come about,"
Sites for starters
www.dsnglobal.com
http://www.nautanki.tv
http://www.byofilmfestival.com/
