Cameras roll on the six-film series
A Shri Ganesh Poojan, and then the first setup. Six short films about money, village life, and the people who stay.
Mann Studios has begun production on a series of six short films. The project opened with a Shri Ganesh Poojan, and the first day’s shooting followed the same day.
For Mannish Ashok Patidar of Petlawad — producer on the series and its associate director of photography — this is the first project of this size.
What the films are about
Four subjects run through the slate: putting a brake on wasteful spending, the plain realities of village life, social awareness, and work that gives young people something to move towards. They are meant to entertain first. The rest should come home with you.
Who is making them
Experienced actors work alongside local performers from the region — that was the point of the open audition, and it is the point of the series: training, and a platform wide enough to be seen from. Mukesh Nagar is line producer and G.D. Singh is director of photography. Background score, foley and the rest of the sound design are being built by Jatin Parmar at JJ Music Studio in Mumbai.
At the muhurat, alongside the crew: Aman Dubey, Deeksha Mishra, Sapna Panwar and Farooq Quraishi from Bhopal, Garima from Indore, Amit Sharma and Dinesh Dhakad from Gwalior, Devendra, Rameshwar Kag and Mohan Parmar from Petlawad, and Anil Sharma, Rajesh Yadav, Lokesh Bhandari, Dilip Patidar and Ashok Patidar.
The aim is to take young people and artists from this region to television serials, to advertising films and to the big screen.
Hariom Sharma, director
Why Jhabua
Jhabua is a tribal-majority district and is counted among the state’s backward ones. The talent here is not short; the platforms are. A studio working out of Petlawad rather than Mumbai is a choice about where the work gets made, and about who gets to make it.