2009 My very first short film! How we made it and failed terribly!
“While in studying in the architectural school, I would occasionally stop by to buy some fruit and peanuts from an old lady that would sit on the side of the road. She had the cutest smile. As a college kid, I was always in a hurry and never got a chance to actually talk to her. But the wrinkles on her face had stories to tell. Stories of loss and pain. Of joys and wonderment. And just like that … one day she was gone. No one knew where to. We heard different stories from different people but never saw her again.
I wrote this story keeping her in mind. Perhaps she was someone who kept moving on, from one place to the other, never settling and never getting attached; even to a place on the side of the street.This was my first endeavor as a writer – director. I recalled learning the poem ‘A solitary Reaper’ by William Wordsworth. A lonely woman singing to herself. That became the foundation for the story.“
“A story of longing and the constant motion in which the life keeps evolving. “
Starring Jyoti Subhash and Akshya Tankale.
Written and Directed by Prarthana Joshi.
Produced by Anurag Ramgopal, Upendra Degurkar, Shirish Sathye and Deepak Kulkarni.
Cinematography by Piyush Puty.
The Solitary Reaper >
( My inspiration )
Newspaper clipping of the screening below.
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland Lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the Vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No Nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands:
A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard
In spring-time from the Cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?—
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago:
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate’er the theme, the Maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o’er the sickle bending;—
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.