Nagesh Kukunoor Makes The World’s Shortest Movie

Nagesh Kukunoor – A Love Story about Father & Son

Can a film be just over six minutes – and still get you emotionally enmeshed? Our Bollywood movies are usually three hour plus juggernauts of drama, romance and comedy but this little film – over in the blink of an eye – shows that length has nothing to do with the impact of a film. Especially if it has a volatile mix of India, aspirations and the love of a father and son – and is directed by that ace director, Nagesh Kukunoor.  Here’s ‘Sapnon Ki Udaan’

 Sapnon Ki Udaan

Interestingly enough, the line between feature films and advertising films is getting blurred – this film pulls at you yet was made as a promotional film for Zee’s new Hindi movie channel, & pictures,  by the advertising agency, Scarecrow Communications.

“This is very much an advertising film,” says Pervin Bhesania, Associate Creative Director, “Though it has a subliminal underlying social message for today’s Indians and which is the channel’s philosophy as well – it is great to have big dreams and aspirations, yet is important to stay rooted to your culture.”

Using the fail-proof resources of Bollywood, this advertising film tugs at the emotional heartstrings of Indians, delivering a message about the future and retaining the connection to culture and the past.

The Bollywood Way

Sapnon ki Udaan  was largely shot on the sand dunes of Dabri Village, 90 kilometers from Jodhpur in Rajasthan.  Instead of creating a studio set, an entire village was set up in Dabri to capture the struggle of the villagers in an area of drought. Lots of Bollywood talent was lassoed to bring the power of cinema to the small screen: The cinematographer for the movie was Chirantan Das whose credits include  movies like ‘Tanu Weds Manu’, ‘Dus Kahaniyaan’, and ‘Lakshmi’.

The song ‘Chali re doli’ is sung by Divya Kumar who has sung popular Bollywood songs like Maston ka Jhund from the movie ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’, Aafaton ke Parinde from the movie ‘Izhaqzaade’, Chanchal Mann from the movie ‘Shudh Desi Romance’ and the official Cricket World Cup Theme song De Ghumake with Shankar Esaan Loy.

Behind the scenes with Nagesh Kukunoor

The music is composed by one of the youngest music directors, Ronit Chaterji, who is known for his composition in the movie ‘Love you to Death’, and the sound engineer is Gajju Bhama (‘London, Paris, New York.’ ) The art director is Haris Umar Khan who has also worked on movies like ‘Dor’,’ Paheli’, and ‘Pehla Nasha’.

The creative team at Scarecrow which worked with director Nagesh Kukunoor included Manish Bhatt, Raghu Bhat, Arunava Sengupta, Kapil Tammal, K.N. Rajesh, Mangesh Mulajkar, Sourabh Dubey, Pervin Bhesania, Lalit Sakurkar, Kunal Parkar, Pooja Thacker, and Mann Parekh.

Interesting! Now Bollywood has infiltrated the ad agencies too with its music, dance, drama and its ethos. Is this going to be a new trend, with Bollywood talent transforming advertisements into highly watchable cinema?  The collaboration may just deliver a nice punch to what we are programmed to buy!

And after Nagesh Kukunoor, which big directors are we going to see enter the advertising realm?

As Nagesh Kukunoor, who had a ball directing the shortest movie in the world, said, “The film is an interesting blend of realism with a couple of  extremely surrealistic VFX effects-laden shots. it’s going to be a very interesting mix. It’s something that I haven’t done before. So personally I am a excited about trying to blend these two, seamlessly. Overall, it was an extremely interesting shoot. Because when you shoot in an area that inspires you to do your stuff, it becomes an enjoyable shoot.”

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