Yes, we are off to CANNES film festival 2013. We had premiered KARMA CODE, the first film on the KARMA series last year at CANNES 2012. The film was watched by some of the notable and important people in the film industry, This includes Anurag Kashyap (Dev D)  and Mickey O’Hara (Rockn’rolla). Their response to the film was a great fuel to the coming projects and KARMA CURRENCY. We will continue to create awareness around our works while we are at CANNES. KARMA CURRENCY will be showcased at CANNES SHORT FILM CORNER along with some 2000 selected short films from all over the world. While were are at CANNES, we shall maintain a blog like we did last year http://fookdatcannes2012.tumblr.com

There is no greater feeling than a completed project. KC2 was a monster of a project for a short film that took an entire year in the making. This is mostly because i live 5000 km away from the sets. The last section of the film was to be re-done twice. Each time, i took a plane to KOCHI from Copenhagen. And if the matter was not good enough, i was not hesitant to hit the delete button (even though a return ticket to india costs 70,000 rupees!). But this is how i we learn to develop, by not compromising. The film might not be perfect, but this is the best we could do with what we had in our hands. We see progress in our methods, we also know our weaknesses.

I’m happy to see that i have brought out some brilliant performances from my actors. The language in which i communicate my story is also becoming my own. I do not have any intentions of sending KC2 to any film festivals. But KC2 has gathered me the courage to make a full length feature film, KC3. Now with a completed KC2, i will be concentrating more on completion of the feature film that follows.

Thanks massive for the support.

“Kill your darlings”, is one statement we heard repeatedly in my film-school days at Rampen. A first, it did sound like our teachers were overdosing on that statement. But as years went by, i began to understand its importance. What is even more shocking to me is that fact that i have now turned myself into a merciless killer of my own darlings. This fancy title roll was something that engaged my mind for months and took a solid month to make. Even though its reached near perfection, i figured out that it is so not conveying its purpose well as an opener. So, kill it.

enjoy it as an outtake. Watch it here 

As mentioned in our previous update, the second schedule was rather hectic with discussions about the third project was underway. We head off to Bombay for a couple of days and we still had a scene to be filmed. We returned from Bombay the night before i have to fly back to Copenhagen. We contacted Vinay Forrt and Roopesh to be ready for the shoot. I arrive at 9 pm, to a rainy Cochin. Vinay, Roopesh and i met at a cafe and discussed the scene, which we improvised while drinking coffee. We then head off to Ajantha Regency, a hotel owned by our friend, but was in a state of renovation. We decided to use the lobby of the hotel as the walls were white. There were no strong light, so we asked Suraj to turn his car toward us and shine his headlights into the lobby to light the room. The first scene of the film Karma Currency was lit by car headlights!

I have to admit that some of the footage we shot for KARMA CURRENCY were not up to our quality, and hence delaying the editing process. I had to return to India in Oct 2012 to hold negotiations regarding the next big project FOOKDAT PRODUCTIONS are embarking upon. And we had just about enough time to undo some scenes, add some more and re-shoot some of the unusable parts from the first take. We still suffer from the audio aspect as we didn’t have a sound mechanic and the onboard microphone picked up even the bee in the far ind of the room. This means that we will have to dub the certain parts of the film after it is been edit locked.

To those who are not aware of it, KARMA CURRENCY will be be co-produced through CROWD FUNDING. The idea behind crowd funding means, people can contribute financially to this project and be a part of it, and to which we provide them perks and titles in return. We had set an estimate target of 4000$ (2.1 lac INR) to be raised from public. We used the INDIEGOGO.COM platform (crowd funding platform) to control the donations to us.

We had to reach the target in 60 days, and WE DID IT. We have now raised 4000$ from ordinary people to help the production of KARMA CURRENCY. We would like to thank our supporters who contributed financially or just shared the news further to create awareness of the situation.One of the prime titles available to this project was the ASSOCIATE PRODUCER, which was taken by Lekha Sidharthan by contributing 2000$ !! Respect !

Here are the names (in no particular order) of people who contributed financially to support this project.

• Lekha Sidharthan
• Paula Hedley
• Arshnee Moodley
• Dan Haffar
• Anne-Rebekka Werner
• Garret Sokoloff
• Desmond Bernhardt
• Ingelise Rasmussen
• Arun Paryadath
• Anka Sackewitz
• Hege Beate Karoliussen
• Lars Fischmann
• Chris Blaski
• Kat Herlo
• Gregory Neethling
• Michelle Simpson
• Sara Steen Andersen
• Bobby Koshy
• Anette Ravn Jensen
• Arne and Jytte Jensen

The money raised will be used to pay film-festival fees, publicity materials and promo materials.