Short Stream | ‘First Time’
Role call: Adiraj Singh’s two-character, one-evening, lyrical short is about intimacy, expectations and lack of communication in relationships
There’s something about films that cover the wax and wane of a single day or a single evening that smack of the familiar. Real time, real life — although craft always takes precedence in storytelling over anything, the “real” in a screenplay often gets pronounced when a film is set over the course of a specific, short period of time.
Adiraj Singh’s First Time is one such film. Singh makes his debut with this short film, completed this year, and already a festival runner. It has been screened at the Bengaluru Film Festival, the Kolkata Film Festival, has been screened at Shorted, a platform for short films, and is a nominee at the Short Film category at the annual Filmfare Awards this year.
First Time is relentlessly intimate, focusing almost wholly and with incessant close-ups, on the only two characters, a couple. Hussain (Saurabh Sachdeva) and Shefali (Priya Ferreira Chhabra) meet for a casual dinner at what looks like a lived-in apartment. Each course of the meal represents a turning point in the way they see themselves, their equation, and each other. It is a no-filler script that captures the impossibility of deciphering the exact reason behind rot in a relationship. Is it lack of communication? Is it the inability to understand each other? Is it the crush of expectations? As the couple discovers, it’s all of the above. Hussain and Shefali waste no time in asking pertinent questions to know each other. 2024 relationship therapy terminology abounds: Polygamy, monogamy, vulnerability etc. It is also set almost entirely in one house, which may be a dose of reality too far for some. Be prepared for a final twist.
Singh is a 27-year-old filmmaker and screenwriter who grew up in Chandigarh with a cinephile mom who ensured her son had the classic film education as he was growing up. “I watched Ray, (Shyam) Benegal and others quite early. And cinema never left me although I studied something unrelated at college,” Singh told me. After finishing college in London, Singh enrolled at the New York Film Academy, New York. “NYFA is where I learnt the necessary fundamentals. I could somewhat believe that yes, I could make a film. It has been a childhood dream.” Last year, he began his crowdfunding drive and by November, he began shooting. “The casting of an experienced actor like him was pure luck. Through a friend, I sent him the screenplay. And because the story resonated with his own life at that time, he readily agreed to do the role,” Singh said.
First Time deals sensitively and minutely with the considerations how one negotiates a long-term relationship. The couple brings up many questions, like whether passion is vital in a relationship that lasts long, or can be replaced by something deeper, more sustainable and sustaining, and what limits should be placed on the pursuit of individual happiness. Above all, it asks whether the pain of separation is worth it. “It was something familiar to me too. A relationship had ended, and I was preoccupied with the idea of communication. Whether proper communication could actually have saved my relationship. The character of Hussain always feels he falls short, no matter what he does because in his mind, his wife is someone much better than him and he would meet his expectations. Form the woman’s point of view, the reality is often very different.”
Saurabh Sachdeva, the lead actor in ‘First Time’, won the Best Actor award at this year’s Filmfare Awards.
Singh is working on two more stories, one of which is a feature film. “I believe an idea or a story has a life beyond its creator. The way it manifests itself and its journey, is not in the hands of the creator,” Singh said. That’s a useful approach to be beginning to work at the film industry, known more for uncertainties than predictable fortunes.
-------------------------------
Short Stream is a monthly curated section, in which we present an Indian short film that hasn’t been seen before or not widely seen before but are making the right buzz in the film industry and film festival circles. We stream the film for a month on HT Premium, the subscription-only section in hindustantimes.com .
Sanjukta Sharma is a Mumbai-based writer and film critic. Write to her at sanjukta.sharma@gmail.com.
Recommended Topics