Short film on a south temple priest fetches international award

When ad filmmaker

Pushpa Ignatius

, 39, sat down to write a story for a short film, it was to be about what would happen if a pious

temple priest

got lured into occult and black magic. “My producer and I are always discussing scripts, and I just told her this idea, and she was sold on it, too,” recalls Pushpa. They had even planned the shoot. But when she started writing, it turned out to be a totally different script. “It was as if the story led me on... instead of me writing the story, the story was making me write it,” says Pushpa. What it has turned out to be is a story of a temple priest and a young girl, a story that hints at religion, mocks casteism, touches upon gender equality, and finally, fate and redemption — a story that’s got Pushpa international accolades.

The shooting happened in and around Chennai. “Finding the location was the only real challenge because none of the temples were ready to give permission for shooting. And then, we zeroed in on a village pond outside the city — a village just after Poonamallee. And we shot at over three to four temples, one of which was a temple in Tambaram for the exterior shots — we cheated a bit here. As for the interior scenes, we knew someone in Kalikambal Koil. So, just for one day, during the three-hour break in the afternoon, they gave us permission to shoot there,” explains Pushpa.

The film is currently doing the film festival rounds. It was selected for screening in the

Short Film Corner

at

Cannes

, and subsequently has won the Silver Tree in the Best Film category at the

Viva International Film Festival

held in Bosnia. Pushpa plans on sending the film to more festivals, and therefore, hasn’t released it yet. So, how has the response been to the film’s story from the international audience? “Usually, people are used to seeing India’s poverty, street kids, beggars, and so on in these circuits. So, temples and rituals do intrigue them. And so does casteism. It’s quite an alien concept to the west.”

“So, I keep getting queries about the temples in the south of India, what are the rituals that happen there, and what is the meaning of caste. But the gender equality bit — they all get. In fact, that too came up in the story quite by accident. In my family, my sister and I have always been brought up differently — my dad always treated us like boys. I guess this was at the back of my mind when I was writing the script. The film does have a dark ending. That’s again something that fascinated the western audience — the fact that the girl doesn’t want to give the priest redemption — she has decided her fate, she will get redemption, but won’t allow him to. And, of course, many in the audience were enamoured by the idol of the Goddess shown in the film,” signs off Pushpa.