Unseen, Untold, Uncreated

This impromptu post emerged out of a conversation with my dear friend, filmmaker and writer Ritwik Goswami. His latest offering "Fade To Black," led me to think about all those  metaphorical films that are lurking in dark spaces, in some state of gestation. As negatives(yes I used that word deliberately) in an archive,  as scripts in a file, as lives yet to be chronicled, all waiting to be brought to to light. We can connect at some level to these unmade films in our own lives.

"Fade To Black" uses the constraints the creator worked under - ten minutes viewing time and 48 hours to create the complete film - to open the audience to those untold stories and films-in-waiting. For me at least, its real strength lay in that.

This ten minute film has left powerful spaces where stories lurk - written and unwritten. The stories of so many kids who don't remain in this world to tell them in person. They reveal themselves differently to each of us and we are left to relate to them and unravel them. 

The film is a reminder to me all over again, that when we are gone, a huge part of us remains that will never be known to ourselves or to anybody. Unless it is through these connections in the stories of others. 

Azaan's was a life unlived. So many possibilities of what could have been. Yet so many possibilities of what it could still be in other lives. Not sure what the title stood for in the mind of the film maker but to me it affirmed that it's darkest before the dawn, that we can "mine the darkness" and illuminate the future ...

Watch the movie and find out for yourselves. You will recognize that the stories - told and untold - are our own.

Note: Film has Queer Content

There is so much more I could say but I don't want to give away anything.

Footnote: A Director's Cut would be welcome. Not to speak of "The Making Of"

And just adding that the viewer can fill in the "nuances" :)