Handloom Picture Company creates ‘Mute’ film to highlight the frustrations of living in India

February 7 2014, 9:18 am | BY Lynchy | 1 Comment

Mute.jpgHandloom Picture Company in Mumbai has created a short film viral titled “Mute” that features a mute actor airing his frustrations on life and society issues in India.

It was written and directed by Handloom’s founder and director Ram Subramanian, who set up his production company four years ago after leaving his CD position at Ogilvy & Mather Mumbai.

“Mute was the result of a lot of prep and I had to change hats constantly to keep the balance of the film,” said Subramanian. “If I made a change as a writer I had to then view it as a director to see if it works in the film’s grammar or go back to the writing board again. The first draft was written in few hours but I had to constantly re-edit the script to get the timing right. While it is a simple idea and script on paper it was the most challenging film I have directed as I wanted the audience to feel a certain way, breathe a certain way, by the end of the mute man’s rant and I wanted to do it in a single frame.”

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“The casting was a task too. My producer ended up casting all over India to find this face… I even started training another actor sign language but few days into that process, I felt he wasn’t correct for this film and ended up revisiting the casting process all over again. Finally I found the actor in this film, Sumeet Thakur who was perfect for the job. He trained every day for a month in sign language and acting and that commitment shows in the film.

“I believe people are all about emotion, we see a lot of romance and family based ‘light and easy’ stuff in mainstream ads, but the reality is people are capable of feeling things that come from greater depths and we rarely tap into that source. I wanted to use ‘mute’ to make that point too.”

Mute was released on January 7th on the Handloom Picture Company’s Facebook page and YouTube. In addition to over 37,000 views, Mute has also got television air time and been covered by magazines and newspapers.