Can you make a film from scratch in just under 48 hours?
Well, 46 passionate filmmakers did just that during the Mumbai 48 Hour Film Project held in the city recently.
The filmmakers were given 48 hours to write, shoot, edit, and score a movie. The movie had to include a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre.
Back in May 2001, Mark Ruppert came up with this innovative idea and quickly enlisted his filmmaking partner, Liz Langston, and several other filmmakers to form their own teams and join him in this experiment.
In 2009, nearly 40,000 filmmakers made 3,000 films in 76 cities.
This year too, the project attracted wannabe filmmakers from all over India including Bhopal, Gwalior, Indore, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Pune.
The team that wins the Best Film-Mumbai will become a contender for the Best International Film competition. Mumbai's Best Film will also be screened at the Miami International Film Festival and the 41st International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa next year.
Ten Best Films from the world over will then be screened at the Cannes 2011 Film Festival's Short Film Corner.
The jury of the Mumbai event included filmmakers Amol Palekar, Nagesh Kukunoor, Shimit Amin, Manish Jha and Paromita Vohra, lyricist-dialogue writer Niranjan Iyengar and theatre actress Dolly Thakore.
The event started at 9.30 am and continued till 8 pm. Out of 130 enthusiastic participants who applied for the event, 70 films were completed in the 48 hours. Finally 46 teams were able to complete the films.
After much deliberation, the judges awarded the Best Film award to Everything is Fair by Last Leaf Productions. In the Closet by Filament Pictures was the first runner up followed by second runner up Final Flight of The Soul by Nimalya Entertainment.
Best Use of Props award went to In the Closet while Best Use of Character award went to My Crazy Friend by Leolibra.
Everything is Fair bagged an award in the Best Actor category while Best Costumes went to In the Closet.
Two films -- Dark by Purple Production and Blades of Grass by Q -- shared the Best Cinematography award. Best Editing went to Return Ticket by O2 Film Labs, Best Writing went to For My Crazy Friend while the award for creative use non-linear narrative techniques went to Lazy Bones.
The film Imprisoned by 2nd Elective bagged the Special Effects award.