Strangers fly to Cannes

The fact that Hyderabad has become a home to many budding filmmakers is being proved time and again. Gaining both international and national recognition is becoming synonymous with most of them. And amongst them is another young and promising director Jennifer Alphonse whose 27-minute short film ‘Strangerssss’ has been selected to be part of the Short Film Corner at the Cannes Film Festival 2014.

So how was the feeling to be recognised and called to be part of one of the biggest international festivals in the world? “When we first got the email, we just kept looking at it for two to three days! We couldn’t digest it. It was our first attempt to send a film to Cannes and we made it. It was when the official website included our name that the whole think managed to sink in,” says an obviously elated Jennifer.

The idea for the film struck Jennifer five years ago when she read an article in the newspaper and then the story took shape. She says, “I read about how a taxi driver went out of his way to help a foreigner and I realised that while the whole world was projecting India as an “unsafe country,” there are people who make a difference. It’s not the country but the people here that make it what it is. There’s a dialogue in my film ‘Where there is a good, there is a bad too’ and that is exactly what made me come up with this story.”

Pitobash Tripathy plays one of the two key characters in the film and the director is all praise for him. He says, “He didn’t charge us anything for the film. He’s busy with his first Hollywood film ‘Million Dollar Arm’ but still made time for us and came all the way to shoot for the film.” And what about the foreigner? “Nesa is a student from Osmania University studying genetics and we selected her after a lot of auditions. You wouldn’t know this is her first time in front of the camera!”

But the greatest support came for Jennifer when K Basi Reddy of DigiQuest came in to fund her film. “Till then everyday I would wonder how the next day would be. It wasn’t easy,” she smiles.

While Cannes is a big leap and a great achievement, a huge recognition isn’t the first time for Jennifer who won the Nandi Award for another short film ‘Kachra’ in 2009. The talented director has also assisted renowned director Krishna Vamsi in the 2005 film ‘Danger’ and attributes ‘everything’ to him. “It’s from him I learnt everything. It was just like a film school,” she explains about her experience working with him.

Meanwhile there is a message that the film would give to its audience – “In our country, we should treat guests as God. If not God, at least as human beings.”

With a stint in short films and also a feature film does she plan to make a feature film herself? “Oh yes! I am writing a script. Will soon be making my feature film debut!”