It happened during lunch break

KOCHI: Thamanna Sol would always see the same scene repeated every lunch break during the school hours - of students wasting food. Now, lunch breaks will never be the same for the students of Alan Feldman Public School with Thamanna poignantly etching the issue of food wastage in a short film.
Christened ‘Lunch Break’, the film released on YouTube has been earning rave reviews.

“All we had was a phone and a selfie stick,” says an excited Thamanna. ‘Lunch Break’ explores the theme of food wastage in an uncomplicated manner. For a Class VII student, Thamanna has captured the theme brilliantly and in an effortless manner.

“Our school had invited entries to be sent to an international short film competition. ‘Lunch Break’ was our entry. It was selected from the lot and has been sent for the competition,” says an elated Thamanna. The movie was shot entirely in Thamanna’s father’s mobile phone and is three minutes 42 seconds long. There isn’t much dialogue in the movie as well. “The plan was to craft the short in such a way that the idea can be communicated quickly. And so we kept it brief and without any dialogues, except one at the end,” she says.

The direction, camera, editing, story and screenplay was handled by Thamanna. Students who were part of the crew included Anakha Suresh (associate director), Mohammed Irfan (assistant director), Arjun S R (camera assistant), Krishna Nandan and Misiriya Safeer (art directors), Avinash Shani (production controller), Durga Lakshmi M C (make up). Her sister Thanmaya Sol who studies in Class III has also acted in the film. The main cast includes Hridhya S Arun, Ishitha Shivani, Thanmaya and the faculty Sreeja and Minimol.

The rest of the crew comprised the students of Thamanna’s class. “The highlight was that all the 39 students had a role in it, be it behind the screen or otherwise,” she says.