In the times of degrading ethos and materialisation of pure feelings like love there remain the remnants which remind us of the valiant qualities of love. Qualities that know how to transcend the humane barriers that come in the way of attaining the abstract essence.

The barriers of gender, of communities, of religion, love transcends them all. But there remains the history as the witness of mortal injuries given by the protectors of these barriers to the ones who decide to transcend them and that forms a stereotype. That creates the terror in the hearts, terror that turns the valiant blood to water. Terror of being abolished by the society in some or the other way.

“Chilgam” is a short film that explores the same themes. The protagonists are the lovers who share the bond of love but are seperated by the dogmas of religious communities that are surrounded with stereotypical beliefs of not being allowed to get married by the community diversion. Can a religion of a person come in the way of choosing the one they love?

The harsh truth that is explored in the short film is that the terror created by the stereotypes prevails in both the lovers. They meet hiding from the society and boy is even ready to sacrifice his love in the name of maintaining the stereotypes and surrendering to it. You’re not only to find the religious stereotypes but altogether the stereotype of considering and comparing love with adultery. But will the elixir of love help them stand undeterred in the favour of their love in front of these communal stereotypes or will their story end in some tragedy? This is for you to find out.

Meaning can be found in anything, anywhere. Sometimes the most resonating and touching ones are found in the spaces between the words. The art often lies in the tasteful use of negative space, it is always the things left unsaid that end up haunting us the most. Short films have a keen way of portraying this subtlety. It is encouraging to see the rise of alternate cinema and unique mediums of storytelling, they have thrived in the shadows of major film industries while harbouring a plethora of great stories. Their slice-of-life nature pushes us to pause a little and think about the lives we lead and how we affect those around us.

‘Almost’ is a six-minute film featuring a heartbreaking conversation between Ankush Bahuguna and Shibani Bedi which stabs you with the bittersweet pain of separation we have all felt in our lives. It almost juxtaposes us in their situation and makes us take the journey of making a difficult choice. Sometimes, it becomes impossible to love someone while truly being ourselves, and what follows is a painful decision. The love never dies, it is only felt from a different perspective; this time through the lens of a phone call. Where major would clamour the pain with a song or a montage, they evoke it through visceral dialogues and simplicity. After watching it, I only thought ‘Just a little bit more, please’.

On a different theme, we have ‘Waqt’, a nine-minute film by Pocket Films-Indian Short. It is narrated by you guessed it! Time. One thinks of time as the ultimate storyteller, the canvas upon which we paint with the memories of our lives, but what does time have to teach? This sweet film takes us through the lives of three people who are dealing with time in completely
different ways. It shows us how kindness bridges the gap between the longest possible distance between two things, the distance of time itself! One simply cannot miss out on the gem that Indian short films are.

Courage to stand for oneself is all that it takes to move out of toxic situations. And sometimes one can derive that courage from the most unexpected places and people in life. ‘The Relationship Manager’ is a short film portraying this beautiful unsaid relation.

Directed by Falguni Thakore and starring Divya Dutta, Anup Soni, Anupam Kher and Juhi Babbar Soni, the film is a story where a relationship manager senses the despondency of a client and motivates her to show courage in traumatic circumstances. This relationship manager instead of marketing his service ended up showing the reality of life to her. It portrays compromises that hundreds of women make on a daily basis and some succumb to the atrocities of it forgetting that all they need is little bit courage to come out of it.

This film just shows that there is so much that still needs to be changed even in the so-called modern world that we call today. Still, people with backward thinking suffer through unfortunate things just to keep a regular life intact. This is what needs to be changed, this is what the world is fighting for, the crime lies in those small moments that we tend to ignore, it’s time we start taking actions and make this a better world.

Watch the film to know whether she gathers the courage to stand up for herself?

Ever heard of a transplant and transplants your religion too? Well, this cute and quick-witted short film directed by Akram Hassan presents you the repositioning of religion along with a heart. This handful of laughter features a man who recently went through a heart- transplant and turned out a different man.

The film represents the perception of a child who rifles through the changes that his father undergoes after a heart transplant. It gives prominence to how people react to a person who wishes to follow another religion. According to them, it is an abnormality to follow another religion while belonging to another.

This hysterical story not just gives you a fun experience but also reveals an important lesson out in the world for the people of the country who follow religion tremendously that it becomes abnormal to enjoy some parts of another religion.

This story blissfully slips in an important lesson and lets you enjoy the course of it since it portrays different confusions and eventually features two people from two entirely different religions come together to solve a problem that initially is based on the differentiation that those people created in the first place.

Enjoy the crackled up story featuring a kid and an old man who gracefully accept the transplant and help others understand the optimism about it too.

Buried in the secret nooks of our hearts are the desires, unreasonable and trivial as they are, they are the small delights which we strive for. Given all the amount of freedom we are acquainted with, it is those small restrictions that look negatively upon our freedom and it is them we want to free ourselves from. Nevertheless, it is the small things that make up a huge world.

“Khayali Pulao” is a short film starring, MostlySane aka Prajakta Kohli, about those small things that make up a dreamland of a girl Asha from a small village Majri in Haryana. Asha is the school topper who finds herself attracted to the sports world and wants to enroll in the school handball team. She appears for the trial and practice round of the selection process and puts in all her efforts to get selected. But despite of all the practice the coach of the team chides her and tells her that she is not meant for sports.

She, however, is perseverant and consistent in her endeavors to get into the team. While everyone around her is trying to decipher the cause that swayed the direction of her mind towards sports and track the sudden shift of her interest, she reserves the reason to herself and for the very end for us to find.

The end traces the very crucial theme of small neglected aspects getting live, of trivial little desires finding their satisfaction and of the ironic freedom we are subjected to yet are restrained from. It is not just the story of Asha of village Majri, it is a story of every ‘asha’ of every soul that lies thirsty waiting for the drop of fulfillment to quench its thirst.

Watch out Khayali Pulao to find the reason behind Asha’s sudden dire passion for handball.