FILM REVIEW: It is definitely a no-brainer that filmmaking is a tedious process with a lot of investment, months of grind and oodles of preparation. However, students at Symbiosis Centre of Media and Communication break this rule every year. This year they did so for the 24 Hour Film Challenge at the SCMC’s very own film festival ‘The East Side Story –TESS’. TESS celebrates all kinds of cinema and provides a platform for students from around the country to showcase their films.
The crew of ‘Kaam 24’ bagged the trophy and were declared the winners of the the 24 Hour Film Challenge. ‘Kaam 24’ revolves around the life of Abhay who has more or less been dependent on the kindness of strangers since childhood which caters to the theme given to all teams. The protagonist gets his name from the child actor that acted as little Abhay. Directed by Devansh Kotak, the film primarily weighs towards the genre of comedy with tragedy and drama as complements. It does not fail to tickle one’s funny bone during its entire screen time.
While most of us might cringe at the idea of being exaggeratedly innocent or unaware, this film brings out the idea adeptly. Even a death sequence is treated humorously, without arousing any kind of horror among the viewers.
While speaking with the crew members, trying to spill out the inside information, I learnt that the whole crew was clueless initially. Being just first year students, photography was all they had done with a camera. Shooting a film was quite a task. It was only 5 hours after getting the theme that they started shooting the film. Nobody in the crew was sure as to what the final product would look like. But all of them, keeping their apprehensions inside their pockets, approached the process with the utmost determination and devotion.
What came to me as a surprise was, every character was given freedom to express and bring out the emotions how they interpreted their character as. There were no pre-decided dialogues or a script. In fact, the script of the movie was written after the shooting was completed!
A restricted time limit always comes with loads of issues, one major issue all the teams faced was the constrained time to shoot in sunlight. After sunset it gets very difficult to film, nevertheless the crew of Kaam 24 had it all sorted with just a motorbike. The whole climax of the film is shot only with the support of a motorbike’s headlight.
“There came a point when we were not stressing each other by thinking about the results at all. We were just enjoying the process. It was quite tiring but it was once in a lifetime experience. Kaam 24 is really close to all of us, its ProxyMoron Production’s first baby. It feels great because we did something out of sheer passion and interest for cinema and it actually fetched us the trophy.” said Shashwat Chaturvedi who also acts as one of the strangers Abhay meets in the film.
Kaam 24 is definitely a must watch! 10/10 SCMC students recommend.
Anushka Ghadigaonkar
(Batch 2021)
