Friday, August 04, 2006

No Motive... Independent film production



No Motive... (Col/English-Hindi/43 min/India/2005)
Dir: RG

This film was made as part of a M.Phil. (Master of Philosophy) course on "Popular Culture." The central theme of the film is 'death and the Other.' The fulfilment of

one's death is only characterised by the 'being' of the Other. This is how your individual self is constituted in language. Death is always your own impossibility of dying but a possibility witnessed by the Other. But the self and the Other are no separate entities at least in the schemata of language. Language equally resonates both in the self and the Other. 'No Motive...' revolves around this confusion: inevitable inclusion of the Other in language which makes dying impossible.

Though the philosophical argument has resemblance to the writings of Emmanuel Levinas, a famous French philosopher of 20th century, the film is an independently conceptualised creation.

Shortcomings:
A complete version of 'No Motive...' has four stories. In some versions of the film, I have omitted two minor stories for lack of their technical quality. Please remember that the film has never gained any market value. Actors were students of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; editing and sound recording was done with an amateur software and the film was shot with Sony HandyCam (Hi8 format). Our studio was one of rooms in the hostel. Above all, this was my debut as a film director. I have not formally learned film making from an institute.

Introduction to 'No Motive...'

Story 1 Actor: Rehearsal of a play... Which part in the play would be performed better by the actor, murder or suicide? If the theme of the play itself is such a bet... you end up saying “If you don’t ACT, you die.”

Download complete script in English-Hindi here.

Story 2 Dead Man: omitted

Story 3 PIG's life: PIG is a popular word among the hostellers of Jawaharlal Nehru University. PIG means 'Permanent Illegal Guest'. New Delhi is a hub of job-seeking youth from various parts of the country and the campus is no exception. In addition, the campus is also a peaceful place for Civil Service aspirants. PIGs, though actually encouraged and promoted by the students themselves, are always viewed as an 'Other' in the dominant discourse of the legal residents. The story is based on a real incident in the hostel. PIGs never die.

Story 4 The Impossibility of Dying: omitted

A complete script of 'No Motive...' in English/Hindi and in Italian will be available in the blog in a few days. Write to me for further information:

The 'No Motive...' team

Produced by: Rajakrishnan PR
Dialogues: Chaity Das, Vinod KK, Rajakrishnan PR
Cast: Shiva Shanmuganandam, Neha Mishra, Sharan Kumar, Jayakumar Mannel, Jhelum Biswas, Prakash, Shaubik, Pradeep...
Videography, Editing: RG

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

this is SHIVA SHANMUGANANDAM.iF MY SPELLING DOESN NOT BEAT IT, THEN I DON KNOW WHAT WILL?

i WOULD LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT YOU FIRST BOTH rAJA AND rAJIV...
aND THEN I WOULD TRANSLATE IT INTO FRENCH AS WELL......
aND THEN WE CAN ALL MEET FOR THE INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF SHORT FILMS AND DOCUMENTARIES...
i'M WORKING ON OTHER PROJECTS DOWN HERE IN INDIA GUYS..
i'LL MAKE YOU PROUD.

mY MAIL IDS: shiva2mail@gmail.com
shivalemoine@yahoo.fr

Ground Zero said...

Thanks Shiva,

Dear visitors, that was Shiva, the chief actor in our movie 'No Motive'. Shiva was dedicated, in fact everyone else was equally dedicated, to the 'No Motive' project. Everyone who watched the movie applauded the acting skills of Shiva. He was the first person to turn up in the morning during the shooting sessions, and he was the last one to leave, perhaps at 3 or 4 in the morning.

It was great experience working with you, Shiva.

I remember the amount of effort you put in at that time to make each shot perfect. Remember the dhaba scene in "Pig's Life", the last shot in the same story when pig jumps down the balcony, the early morning shot in the mess, the tandava scene of "Actor", my my... it was work, work and work all the time. Everything bore fruit at the end. We made a remarkable achievement in the history of JNU. I shall upload the scanned copies of newspaper reports of 'No Motive' here soon.

Thanks buddy... Sorry to have delayed this reply.

SadaShiv said...

Hey Rajiv...
Longtime boss... Hope u're ok...
Where're u at? pls keep in touch chettayi...
Where are the the scanned copies of newspaper reports of 'No Motive' ?
And the link to download the script is broken... Can u pls email it to me... shivmail@hotmail.com
Als pls follow my blog boss:
http://blogmeblack.blogspot.sg/
http://shivblogs.tumblr.com/
http://shivblogs.wordpress.com/

Neha said...

hi.. does anyone have the movies?? how can i get them? This is Neha (the acting-less actress). Hi all :)