Arun Karthick, a 25-year-old filmmaker from Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district, has won the IFFR’s (International Film Festival Of Rotterdam) prestigious Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) for scripting and project development.
Speaking to Silverscreen, Arun Karthick said he hoped the Hubert Bals Fund would sustain him through the script development stage, until he could find producers to bankroll the film. “My new project will be centred around an ordinary small town salesman. The film is in preproduction stage,” said Arun.
This year, the IFFR has selected 11 projects from both debut directors and established filmmakers. Each filmmaker will receive a contribution of €10,000 for script and project development.
Arun’s debut feature film, Sivapuranam/A Strange Case of Shiva, was screened at IFFR’s Bright Future category in 2016. The film, shot in avantgarde style, without dialogues, was about a man who leads a solitary life in Kerala.
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Arun also said, “Coimbatore-based producer Suresh Kumar, who helped me make my first film, has expressed interest in partially funding the new film. It’s not easy to make an independent film in this region. Most of the potential producers are only interested in information like how much my previous collected at the box-office and how much the new film will earn.”
He is hoping that winning the Hubert Bals fund will give him more visibility.
Arun is an active member of Coimbatore’s Konangal Film Society, where he was introduced to the international classic films while he was still at school. “I want to work with Konangal to screen excellent Indian indie films that people usually never get to watch at theatres or similar screening spaces,” he said.
Feature Image Courtesy: IFFR Official Site