Actor-director Naseeruddin Shah thinks that making a short film is much tougher as compared to directing a full-length feature. “It is the same as a short story against the novel. You have to be succinct and precise,” he tells The Hindu on a quick phone call on the eve of the release of the new short that he has acted in — Karan Rawal’s Half Full.
The film is part of a short film festival, comprising nine films in all, that unveils on the ZEE5 OTT platform today. The other eight, directed by Sonam Nair, Satarupa Sanyal, Navjot Gulati, Ram Kamal Mukherjee among others, star well-known names like Rhea Chakraborty, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Rajeev Khandelwal, Sumeet Raghvan, Celina Jaitley, Lilette Dubey, Rajit Kapur, Rajat Kapoor, Abhishek Banerjee and more and promise to be spread across diverse genres — romance, drama, thriller, comedy.
Strange connections
Without giving away much, what one can reveal about Half Full is that it’s about two men whose paths happen to cross on one fateful rainy night and the strange connect they find in each other. The film has Vikrant Massey co-starring with Shah.
It might be tougher to narrate a story in brief, with a just few scenes to spare but Shah, who has five shorts behind him, feels that the short film movement offers filmmakers a lot of creative freedom. Both when it comes to the subjects and the narrative as well as how they should be made. “They come without the indulgences like box office collection, are risk free and help filmmakers hone their craft. They may in the future make good feature films,” he says.
Challenging medium
Shah is quick to point out that most of the short filmmakers are in their 20s. “I find it stimulating to work with the young first timers,” he says of the infectious energy that they bring along to the sets. However, it is not to say that he agrees to do every script that comes his way. “But I read each of them carefully and offer my suggestions,” he says. So what was it about Half Full that excited him? “The humour. The fact that it strikes a positive note,” he says.
Not just the director, it’s Shah’s first outing with his co-actor Massey as well, though he had seen and appreciated his work, particularly in Konkona Sen Sharma’s A Death in the Gunj and Alankrita Srivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha. Much of the film draws from their give and take. What worked for Shah was the equality in this exchange with Massey. “I am not very pleased when my co-actors talk about being nervous in my presence. I find it disturbing. Vikrant didn’t let that get in the way. He was not overawed,” says Shah. They just got together, went through the script, changed a few lines and carried on. “He is a very responsive and expressive actor,” says Shah.
The film was shot over just one night, another aspect he likes about working in shorts. “You have to sweat and slog for weeks [for features], at times in uncomfortable locations,” he says.
Shah was to have been in Fatehpur, in the Shekhawati region, shooting for another web series right now. But things came to an abrupt halt when the lockdown was announced.
As he had told The Hindu earlier, he has been spending the free time on hand now reading Anthony Burgess. To which he now adds Shakespeare and Faiz Ahmed Faiz. “To be honest I am not feeling miserable and suffocated at all. I like being at home,” he says. Is he also working on something ahead for the future? “In fact I formulating a new [theatre] production in my head, based on the letters exchanged between Faiz and his wife when he was in jail,” he says. In his own words, it’s ultimately all about time well spent.