An honest account of young adulthood

When John Pius thought of a story in his mind and decided to make a short movie out of it, little did he know that he was about to strike a chord with a number of youngsters. “I am quite surprised when I look at the comment section. So many of them are saying the story resembles their own life story. I did not think it would be relatable for so many of them.” The thought behind the short film Oru Kumbasara Rahasyam was simple. “The story’s message is ‘move on happily’. I made it for those who just had a heartbreak or those who are hoping to get over it and get their marriage fixed by their parents.”

The short film is simple, it shows a small but significant event that repeats through the different characters of the movie — confession. “This is inspired from the lives of so many people around me, I cannot pick out any specific person though. There are times when I have asked my friends whether they would be able to accept it when they found out that the person they are about to get married to once had a relationship. There were people who answered that they were perfectly ok with it and there were people who were not ready to accept it too. 

“I felt that this was a good theme. In the short film, each of these characters who are connected to each other openly confesses about having a previous relationship, in a way this is the one loop within the story ‘to confess’.” The protagonist of the film is popular RJ, Joseph Annamkutty Jose. Speaking about how he roped in Joseph, John says, “I met Joseph while working on another script. I had approached him for some input since he had few similarities to the character I was writing about. The meeting grew into friendship. Later on when I developed the thread for this short film I spoke to him about it. Once the story was developed, he heard it and liked it.” The short film was released on YouTube on January 12 and John is happy with the response. 

“Plenty of people are asking me if there will be a second part. It is such an encouragement to hear all this, it got me thinking about making the second part,” he laughs. “I have always loved movies, I am very passionate about it,” says John, who completed an MBA in Finance and used to have a full-time job. “The job somehow did not workout well for me. So I quit and decided to turn to films. I started off with a short film because I wanted to learn. I also wanted something in my hands to show since I am looking forward to learning the art of filmmaking under good filmmakers,” he says.