Parakayapravesham (To Take Another Human Form): 2013

Parakayapravesham teaser

Festival Selection

Happy to announce that 'Parakayapravesham'(To take another human form) has been selected at the International short film festival of Uruguay. It is a three day festival of shorts. (about 100 shorts are selected, out of 1000+ they receieved this year says the mail)

Thanks for the support

https://www.facebook.com/Ficu2012

Parakayapravesham is selected to the Vibgyor international short film and documentary film festival (international section) Thrissur, Kerala, India.

http://www.vibgyorfilm.org/selected-film2014.php

Cast, Crew and production details.

Budget: Zero
Shooting Locations: Palmerstown and Parkwest in Dublin and Ratoath in county Meath
Camera and lenses: Canon DSLR 600 D, 650 D, 18-55 kit lens, 70-200 f2.8 sigma, 11-16 f2.8 tokina.
Editing: FCP X and Adobe After Effects
Duration: 14:45
Shooting format: 1080p 24 frames, 16:9 , h264 codec MOV wrapper.
Screening formats available: DCP, prores 422 HQ, h264 codec MOV file, Blue ray, DVD.

Cast: Joshy Jacob, Sandra Joshy, Kiran Joshy, Teena Joshy, Varsha Joshy

Dubbing and sound: Joshy Jacob
Associate direction: Binu Daniel
Co direction, Cinematography, PRO: Sachin Pollassery
Writing, Direction and Post production: Jijo S Palatty.
Production: Buddhi Pictures
© January 2013

Special Thanks: Renjith Champonthayil, Shyam Ezad, Jimmy antony and family, Santhosh Joseph, Aneesh Joseph, Roshin Vattaparampath, Arun Sadanandhan, Prince Clicks, Basil Skaria.

Parakayapravesham (To take another human form) synopsis

How many sausages will I have to eat to drive out the red gods hiding under my black skin? When will I straighten out my limbs to fit into the white man's suit...? What will be me when I hang upside down with roots high up in the air? Will my children be proud of me then? Will they say I have made it? If so I will do it. I will learn the new rhythm, obey the instructions and dance to the new music. Let the white mans suit crush my bones and suffocate the red gods to death. For I cannot lose my children. What is life without my children....Forefathers, please forgive me... I have left you and my land. This foreign land claims my son. Our bloodline stops here. Day by day he is turning white. Whatever is left of us in him makes me feel guilty of my dark skin.

Parakayapravesham (To Take Another Human Form) is a short film on immigrant angst in dark comedy. The 14 minute long short shows how an Indian immigrant’s (in Europe) loneliness, seclusion and stuck-in-a-rut marginalised life style without any social events contributes to the frustration and disgust he feels about his nominal existence in the western world. To top it off he finds all his sacrifices going down the drain as he notices his children growing up into non-caring, self possessed strangers, distant and cold, who find him odd and out of place. In a desperate attempt to live up to them he is trying to change, trying to leave himself behind and become another.

The first half concentrates on the slow rhythm of eastern lifestyle. The protagonist, a symbol of male chauvinism and the old world order, aloof from the world outside fights pressure from his children to change and become modern. He refuses to eat with cutlery or wear a blazer.

On his only son’s birthday he tries to present his 5 year old son with a rubber-waste ball he himself had grown up playing with back in India. Due to his poor English, communication fails between them. Desperate to connect to his son he decides to obey the instructions he received from his daughter in order to change into the modern gentleman: ‘stand straight, walk straight, and speak straight forward’

The state of being uprooted has a desperation, anger and instability about it. The only consolation of the eastern immigrant is the family bond, the feeling that all his sacrifices will find fruit in his children. But his sacrifices silently demand his children be grateful in return. Independency is not a character he loves in his children.

Children growing up to the realisation of their parents pathetic existence makes them not sympathetic but contemptuous; and they usually gives vent to their own tensions living in the foreign and usually-not-so-friendly world by treating their parents as inferior and to be ashamed of. For somebody who left his country after the age of 35, who had been living the typical patriarchal father’s life with full authority and control over his family, who was respected as the head and breadwinner, this state of being jobless, neglected and voiceless in decisions is very painful.

In an impulse to act out on the instructions, he puts on the blazer and walks up to an acquaintance’s house to reveal to him that he had seen his wife with another man many times. It backfires and he is beaten up. Defeated and derailed he retreats indoors and walks up and down the room in anger giving vent to his frustration by throwing the blazer away and in a long shriek at the camera (Camera represents the pressure from his family and society to change)

Director's Filmography

Wrote, directed and edited: 4 shorts and one Feature

Duality show

short film (2008) Duration: 20 mints
Language: English and Malayalam, Subtitles: English, Country of production: Ireland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGqUJ1mBlRQ

A documentary is a portrayal of reality while as a feature film is fictitious. We all live in
reality and act in fiction. Yet at times we are forced to act in real life making life fictitious.
Thus there comes fiction in reality. This film tries to explore the possibilities of this reality
fiction dichotomy through an experimental plot revolving around the tension created by the
differences in the two worlds a new immigrant lives in -- the world he left behind and the
world he lives in.
The film depicts a day in the life of a group of Indian immigrants in Ireland trying to make a
film. The director of the film with an experimental approach to film making is trying to shoot
a scene in a room without any rehearsals involving many actors who do not know each other
and are given different kinds of scripts even.

PRODUCTION DETAILS:
Budget: Zero
Production Date: December, 2008
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Shooting hours: 20 hours
Shooting method: Dogma 95 (except background score)
Camera: Sony fx7e,
Editing: Adobe premiere pro, After effects
This is my very first attempt at film making. All actors and crew are completely amature first
timers. Film was previously uploaded on vimeo.

Happy Independency Day

short film (2009) Duration: 11 mints
Language: English and Malayalam, Subtitles: English, Country of production: Ireland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oOgUhmKkts

PRODUCTION DETAILS:
Budget: Zero
Production Date: September 2009
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Shooting hours: 6 hours
Shooting method: Dogma 95 (except background score)
Camera: Sanyo Xacti camcorder,
Editing: Adobe premiere pro, After effects
All actors and crew are completely amature first timers. Film was previously uploaded on
vimeo.

Similarity

short film (2008) Duration: 13 mints
Language: English and Malayalam, Subtitles: English, Country of production: Ireland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DzHbwiW2-A

While intellect sees difference imagination notices similarity. what you want to see determines what
you see.
This short film is a subtle study on similarity/difference in personality types in a situational drama
where false modernity subjugate straightforward, rustic simplicity.
After all isn't modernism and traditionalism two sides of the same coin like similarity and difference
?
PRODUCTION DETAILS:
Budget: Zero
Production Date: November 2009
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Shooting hours: 5 hours
Shooting method: Dogma 95 (except background score)
Camera: Sanyo Xacti camcorder, Sony camcorder
Editing: Adobe premiere pro, After effects
All actors and crew are complete amatures, mostly first timers. Film was previously uploaded on
vimeo.

The third world

Feature film (2010) Duration: 1 hr 50 mints
Language: English and Malayalam, Subtitles: English, Country of production: Ireland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7i_r0Arg3g

PRODUCTION DETAILS:
Budget: Zero (except food expenses)
Production Date: September, 2010
Location: Dublin, Ireland
Shooting hours: 70 hours
Shooting method: Dogma 95 (except background score)
Camera: Sony fx7e,
Editing: Final Cut Pro, After effects