Singapore: Neelambari, the independent Malayalam short film, directed by debutdirector, Aditya Mazumdar, produced in Singapore released on Neestream’s YouTube Channel on the eve of Onam, 20 August 2021.
The lead actors of the film are Gayathri Gopal, well known actress-anchordancer, Prem Menon who was recently seen in Kathaah@8 and Moly Menon, Pradeep, who makes her film debut in Neelambari. The script and creative supervision was by well known Singapore filmmaker, Shilpa Krishnan Shukla.
Keshavan Master, a very talented singer and Suma, a retired English teacher are now visiting his best student Nithya (an internationally acclaimed singer) who lives in Singapore to attend the biggest concert of her life ever. Post their arrival in Singapore, the string of conversations that takes place brings to the surface long suppressed questions and realisations. What is the outcome of these conversations for the 3 of them forms the rest of the story.
The cast, director of photography, location sound, writer, & creative producer are all based in Singapore. Post production including Music, DI, Sound design was done in Mumbai by Liberty Films headed by Mathew Jenif Joseph.
The entire background music and rolling credits vocal track are originals composed for this film and based on the Indian classical music raaga ‘Neelambari’ by a young music director, Vineeth Paul barely 24 years of age.
The director, Aditya Mazumdar is a seasoned theatre actor and an alumnus of Anupam Kher’s school, ‘Actor Prepares’, the performing arts is his hobby. Aditya was not intending to becoming a director since acting is his first love.
But then, Shilpa gently pushed him to direct “Neelambari” – a story completely in contrast to his personality and style and that too in Malayalam, a language he is not familiar with.
The film has won 8 international awards and recognitions from Best Short Film to Best Cast Ensemble at various reputable film festivals including IMDb qualifiers festivals. Neelambari is one of eight short films of the #BDNPJump initiative, a collaboration between Black Dabba Productions and The Navya Project. It was shot in Singapore during the COVID-19 pandemic, in line with safe distancing protocol.
The #BDNPJump initiative aims to nurture independent filmmaking talent in Singapore. The collaboration introduces eight debut directors. Apart from Aditya, the other debut Directors are Balaraman Kunduvara (film: Navrasa,released), Charan Singh (film: Dost, released), Gautam Marathe (film:Butterflies), Sai Pogaru (film: Dad, released), Uma Kalyani (film: Mini, released), Viral Patel (film: Aerogrammes, released) and Mathew Jenif Joseph (film: Vesta, released).
All eight directors have received guidance on various aspects of filmmaking – from story-boarding, to editing and post-production, as well as marketing and communications.
