Imaginary Portrait

And to finalise the list of my online showreel :)
An Imaginary Portrait, which I wrote with Sujay, the director, after he liked the story of the "First Time" monologue filmed for our acting classes.
It won a prize in the short film festival in Punes 2008.

Black Swan

This is the short I graduated from Uni with.
You can really feel my surrealist and experimental influences here! 5 years later... I'm working on a feature inspired by this story :)



UK 2007
Director: Fiona Cross
With Amith Rahman (previously known as Abraham Chowdhury) and James Horseman


Once upon a time, there was a very ugly duckling, unloved and rejected by his family and society. The lonesome bird grew strong and bitter, plotting a way to get back at society for what it had made of him.
Black swan reflects on what has pushed our society to create its own ugly ducklings. Transferring this tale onto the London life style today has proven itself to be more than successful, playing with the audiences’ conceptions and stereotypes. Saeed is first introduced as a young Muslim, whose faith has given him the strength to go and achieve his goal. Although this isn’t made clear, through his journey across central London, it is strongly believed he is on his way to join the line of terrorist attacks. But what is it that actually convinced us that this was who he was? This deaf and dreamy character in a white skin would not have seemed more innocent. And here comes Peter James, a disturbed attention seeker who thinks the whole world is against him. So, when a London station does blow up, and Saeed is in that station confronted by Peter James, our prejudice and maybe unconscious racism is forced forward. By focusing on who might be a potential suspect, we forgot to look at who showed obvious signs of danger. The grown ugly duckling, now an oddly graceful black swan, has finally found a way of getting back at society from ignoring him for such a long time.
The directors’ third short has taken a more experimental and political turn. The style is striking yet gritty with some beautiful locations such as the Woking mosque, the oldest of the whole of Britain. The sound inspired by French film “Sur mes Levres” supports the quirkiness of the fast editing and the montage sequence. The colours have subtly been edited to fit Saeed modified vision of the world around him, increasing the peculiar feeling, the world we know but some is somehow difficult to recognise.
Her surrealist influences lead her ideas and the narrative of this short reflect this with some recurrent landmarks already such as the montage/day dream sequence and the strong aesthetic presence of nature.
Far from the fairy tale aspect, the film however remains poetic and unpretentious with the integration of all members of the crew passing in front of the camera at one point in the film so as to prove that they are not above the audience and that they would have probably made the same mistake.
Black Swan is a tender yet abstract and disturbing short which pulls us all out momentarily of our reality and pushes us into this dark, prosaic and political position, forcing us to loose trust in our own thoughts.

First Time

Directed in 2007.
Amazing looking back at old work and being able to see how much you progressed in 3 years.
Still this was one of my favourite shoots with an excellent team!
Much love to you all

What a difference a day made

Missing my two little adings
xx

For a Smile

Because we all have them

We all have them.
Moments.
Moments of doubts, moments of fear, moments of anger, moments of madness.
Or moments of laughter, moments of happiness, moments of bliss, moments of pride.
Whatever they are, they are best not to be lived alone. Share them with someone and the pained will be halved, or the happiness doubled. Open up yourself to the ones your love and trust. They are part of who you are, they make you more real, and in touch with your inner self. Hiding them to appear stronger will weaken you more than anything, putting a veil on an issue does not make it disappear.
Don’t force it. The first step is to realise that you are holding back. Find the moments in your day when you feel you could have said something but didn’t. If it’s still accurate to do so, then bring those thoughts back up later. Slowly those realisations will become closer to the moment, and soon it will be seconds between the thought and it’s expression. Just stay connected.
It’s a long process to master, but be it career or on a personal level, expressing your true self is what will take you further in life, rather than baring the mask of the one you wish to be. The stronger one, the funnier one, the darker one. Bas les masques is what I would say in French. Live with what you have been given and make those qualities stronger, turn them into your shield. They are a gift from God, and it’s now in your hands to master them.

Picture by http://technicolorpsyche.blogspot.com/

Inception

One word: Waw.
Maybe that’s not a word but that’s the only one that can summarize it’s all mighty amazing-ness.
The subject itself was enough to attract me. Dreams. If you are reading this then you probably know me. And if you know me, then you know how much dreams are a recurrent theme in my life and my work. Most of the films I’ve written or directed have included a dream sequence. I just like the surrealist feel of them and how art uses them to subtly reveal the unconscious. Anyway, back to Inception.
This film is a masterpiece. An true art work from director Chris Nolan who has cleverly orchestrated a film that will leave you wondering what just hit you.
The film was flawless. The special effects were impressive, and mostly never seen before and the editing fitted to perfection the pace of the story. And as for the performance of DiCaprio, Cotillard and Co, simply faultless.


But were Nolan proved his genius was with the swift switching between realities, to a point where more than ever, you leave the cinema wondering wither you are yourself in a dream.
Usually, after watching a good film I feel like I am living in the said film, at least for 30 minutes until after the film has finished. The experience of watching a film in itself is, as a principle, the idea of entering someone else’s’ reality for a couple of hours. My fellow film graduates will know that it’s our inner “voyeur” side. So entering someone’s not only reality, but also their dreams is taking the experience one step further.
Anyway, if you think how confused the audiences were in the 20’s after seeing a close-up for the first time, thinking that a head had been cut up for the screen, this is the feeling we had leaving the cinema today.
Nolan has put spectacle back into film. We are entering a new era, realism has taking a new turn. And British film-makers are back in the game!
Move over Hollywood. We are the new generation of British directors and we are taking you for quite a ride. You’ll be wishing you were dreaming.

Pictures borrowed from Traileraddict.com and media.nj.com