7 rounds to cannes!

Karthik Menon is one of the writers of a short film titled 7 Rounds. The short film, which is directed by George Savvidis, was selected to be a part of the Cannes Short Film Festival that will be held from May 8 to 19, 2018. The film is based on two young Indian engineers who go to their local bar only to encounter a series of challenges related to the perceptions of their ethnicity. Karthik, who has family in Bengaluru and visits the city often, is looking forward to working on some projects.

Menon had earlier worked on Fated (2017), Spice Affair (2017), Fourth Person (2016) and Vows to Wow (2017) as well.

Karthik realised that he had a way with words back in high school.  “Writing was always a tool for me to express myself.  However, it was definitely not in the plan until about three years ago. Having finished my Bachelors, I was having a bit of what one would call an existential crisis,” he adds. Karthik’s biggest worry was about not being happy with whatever he was doing. “I was in the city when my aunt sat me down and asked me what I wanted do, it was then that I finally embraced my love for filmmaking and enrolled myself to do a masters in screenwriting,” Karthik adds. Although a bit clichéd, it was his mother who made him in fall in love with writing. He still remembers a time in  8 grade where his mother helped him out with homework essay. Elaborating more on this he says, “We were told to write a creative essay. I had done my part but it was hardly readable. She rewrote the whole thing. My professor loved it so much that he made me read it out during assembly.” 

Reading out that essay made him want to be at least half as good as what his mother was. Karthik says 7 Rounds pretty much wrote itself. The movie is inspired by the incident that happened in Kansas in February 2017, when two Indian men were gunned down by an American at a local bar because they were mistaken to be Middle Eastern. Most recently, Adam W. Puriton was arrested after he shot Srinivas Kuchibhotla and Alok Madasani in bar while they were enjoying some after-work drinks. Elaborating more on this he says, “The movie shows their daily struggles with the little forms of discrimination that they face everyday and something that is often just ignored can lead to something much worse.” 

7 rounds was an opportunity to shed light on the level of ignorance and the racial divide that was rapidly spreading across the country. It makes a strong statement on how the rhetoric used by the current government of the United States, not only affects the mindset of Americans, but including every race in America and around the globe. 

7 Rounds had a screening at the New York Film Academy and the consensus was largely positive. Karthik feels that the character drives the plot and not the other way round. An alumnus of the New York Film Academy in Los Angeles, he feels that the short film industry plays a very crucial part and platform where new talent is discovered. “To be able to efficiently develop a concept or a message you want to send out and compromise that to within 15 minutes is incredible. It is more difficult to write a short film than a feature or a TV pilot,” he adds..

On asked what he thinks of the scene in the city, he adds, “I think being one of the upcoming metropolitans in India, Bengaluru is a place that has a potential for a lot of future investments into the short film sector. I know that web series are making its way forward and it won’t be long before short films too are celebrated.”