The Malhaar VirtualVideo Film Festival’s Day 7 was just what we needed. Following masterclasses and conversations on one of the most essential themes relating to film. The 7th day of the Malhaar Virtual Video Film Festival featured a process walkthrough and a master class on some of the most pressing issues of the day.
As usual, the first session began at 7:30 PM IST and ended at 8:31 PM IST on August 25th, 2022. The informational and educative session on bringing individuality into the process of animation filmmaking was carried out by Varoon Indalkar. He is a 3D animator himself, along with being a CG generalist and voice talent from Vietnam. He gave people a deep insight into how an animated film is made, and though it doesn’t involve real actors but their voices, it still requires the same level of technicality as any other live-action movie. The attendees were very moved by how Varoon explained to them the basics and then the core of how an animated film is made and how you can show your emotions and connect your characters with the audience.
After Varoon Indalkar’s session, the event moves on to the next portion, an intriguing masterclass with Aastha Khanna. Many people are unaware that an intimacy coordinator is essential on a film set to keep actors at ease and prepare them for intimate scenes. She emphasised the value of intimacy in movies and how it conveys the characters’ vulnerability and emotional commitment. Intimacy is as crucial as any other aspect or scene in the film, and Aastha Khanna underlined this point to perfection.
In her master class, she developed the growing significance of the role in new emerging films, particularly in facilitating a safe and comfortable environment during the process of shooting intimate scenes, by saying, “Often directors don’t understand the vocabulary of intimacy. They have their own inaccurate ideas built in their head. Many a times, we see that it’s to write intimate scenes for screenwriters and directors. But it’s a completely different story when it comes to briefing the actors on the details of it. It is not because they don’t want to do a good job, which they totally do want to, but because there’s so much stigma around talking about sex in our society.”
If you already don’t know, Aastha Khanna filled in the shoes of intimacy coordinator in Shakun Batra’s recent directorial project “Gehraiyan”, which was released on Amazon prime, and explained the fundamental concepts of emotional and intimate coordination. She outlined the key factors of how to prepare actors for the scene by expressing, “When you make your performers feel supported, feel that their consent is being upheld, and ensure that their voice matters, you’ve won half the battle involved in this work.”
This year, the Malhaar Virtual Video Film festival ramped up the stakes by assembling an impeccable jury panel made up of well-known members of the show business. The list includes Adil Husain (an Indian actor who has won numerous national awards), Rajit Kapoor, Sameer Nair, the CEO of Applause Entertainment Limited, Neeraj Kabi, an Indian actor and producer who is self-taught, and Amitesh Grover (a theatre artist and author and associate professor at the National School of Drama). Gautam Vaze, the director of a short film, K. Rajagopal, the Special Jury Prize winner of the Singapore International Film Festival, and Ajayan Vincent, a well-known cinematographer, have all been invited to the festival.
These were the festivities of the Malhaar Virtual Video Film Festival’s day 7 event. The film festival will continue with its spectacular sessions for the following three days with a new set of guests.
The Malhaar Film Festival, which will take place from August 19 to August 28, 2022, initially started with a grand opening ceremony and master sessions by some of the world’s most renowned artists on its first day and has since continued to indulge and help encourage the audience with such incredible sessions on a daily basis. Be a part of the Malhaar Global Virtual Video Festival to take part in all of these engaging and informative sessions, as well as the live Q&A sessions with well-known filmmakers.