“That Thing With Feathers” a short film by Sukriti Chaudhari, an independent filmmaker from New Delhi is busy finishing up her film, so that she can present it in numerous film festivals. Chaudhari, came to the U.S. last year and just recently graduated from the New York Film Academy and her film is part of a thesis assignment for one of her classes.
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The 18-minute short film is about a married couple, who have been together for a few years, find themselves drifting apart as they get wrapped up in their own worlds until one day, at a friend’s party, they are revisited by their past and decided to approach each other again as strangers so they can rediscover each other. However, it does not go as planned and things get out of hand.
Chaudhari has been in the media industry for more than 10 years in India and has come to New York to gear her career towards making more fictional films as she was tired of making corporate films, lifestyle films and films for international organizations such as Global Health.
In an interview, Chaudhari said how the last few months have been extremely crazy due to the day-long classes, all night editing and weekend shoots. “You go out in a group and you shoot your film as well as be the crew for the others’ films,” she said.
She practically fell in love with New York City and said that she “loved the sheer diversity” of it and that she never felt out place as “it felt like home” to her.
For “That Thing With Feathers,” Chaudhari sent out a casting notice and with the help of casting services such as Backstage and Bigtown, she was able to chose the cast for her film through three rounds of auditions. She noted the importance of backup actors, warning that “your first choices may not be your final ones.”
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She has done many commercials in the past and has had experience in filming TV shows. “I would love to do TV shows as they are produced at the same quality as movies in terms of budgeting and casting,” she said.
She explained how money plays a huge role when shooting these fiction films and how she herself had a hard time shooting some scenes for hers. “I was waiting to shoot some outdoor scenes in March, when the weather got better, but the day we were supposed to shoot, the blizzard hit, stopping everything. I had to rebook locations,” she recalled.
Her film is currently in post production. Chaudhari hopes to have it ready by the end of the month as she “wants to enter it into as many film festivals as possible.”
She will be writing a story for her next film and will approach investors to see who would be interested in working with her in sponsoring her film. She will keep working and see if she can get to work on TV shows so that she can stay closer to the fictional, movie-like filmmaking that she eventually wants to pursue.
Chaudhari hopes that by entering her film “That Thing With Feathers” into various film festivals, she will be able to promote her film as well as herself and network her way into the industry as “a film festival is a gateway to the filmmaking industry.”
By Premji
