Vishnu Edavan is thrilled. His short film, Kalki has been short-listed as one of the top five movies at First Clap, a Tamil short film contest organised by Moviebuff. The three-minute action-drama speaks about communal harmony and humanity through its characters: a thief who is Christian and a pregnant Muslim woman.
“Nearly 750 entries from across India were entered for the contest. Kalki making it to top five is overwhelming,” says the 24-year-old director from Coimbatore. Kalki has garnered 653,699 views on You Tube. It took Vishnu one week to write the script. “I was deeply disturbed by the Kathua rape, and so I chose a temple as my location. There is a lot of unrest in our society; we forget that there is goodness in every human being. Kalki makes my audience think about this,” says Vishnu, who works as an associate director with Lokesh Kanakaraj, the well-known director of Maanagaram.
The film was shot in Chennai. “We completed the shoot in a single day, working for 16-hours at a stretch. It was exhausting, but I enjoyed every bit.”
Vishnu Edavan
He says his mother and some doctors helped him out with the childbirth scene. “I wanted the expressions on the face of the mother during childbirth to be real. I am happy that I was able to capture the scene with all its intensity,” he says and adds that the difficult bit was to find an actress who would play the role.
Vishnu is an engineer turned director. His love affair with movies started when he was studying in class VIII after watching Billa. “I am a big fan of Ajith. Even when I was in college, I knew that I wanted to be in the film industry. I started making short films after my graduation.”
Vishnu has done three other short films before Kalki. “But none enjoyed this kind of a response.” He says Kalki taught him different aspects of filmmaking and gave him self-confidence. The top five films were screened in theatres across the state through July. “In Coimbatore, it was screened in Shanthi Saradha, Ganga Yamuna Kaveri and The Cinema Brookefields for three weeks. I went to watch Kalki with my family. I was in tears when I saw the audience applaud my film. It was like a dream.”
Vishnu hopes the film will make it to the top three when the results are announced. If it does, he gets a chance to narrate the story to Suriya’s 2D Entertainment. “I am preparing for this.”
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