Those who surfed Facebook last week might have noticed the most shared four-minute video She deserves better, which has cine actors Balaji Sharma and Anjali Nair in the lead roles. In fact, there is a small story behind the creation of the well-accepted short film directed by Evli Varghese.
“I have been active in the film industry for the past four years as an assistant director,.working in films like Pakida and Lal Bahadur Shasthri. It was a few months ago that I, along with my two friends Shan Jose and Alwyn Chacko, decided to launch a production house — Las Studios — to conceive ad films and corporate videos. But we were adamant that our first work should be a socially-relevant one,” says Evli.
The director felt that a short movie as a tribute to womanhood would be the best to launch their production house. “It was when going through the website of UN Women that I got this theme. When I started thinking on that, I understood that majority of the jobs around the globe are helmed by females, but the lion’s share of those tasks are not paid for. No housewives are getting enough respect for their work. These are the factors which prompted to go ahead with this theme,” he says.
The film cost a total of Rs 7 lakh. “Though we had plans to approach certain corporates to market the film as their tribute to women on the International Women’s Day, nothing happened. It was then we released it via Facebook through the page of actress Honey Rose. Even though we got no revenue, the good comments we’ve received make us proud of having done a good project,” he sums up.
