Private Project

Eulogy to the Deaf

An autorickshaw driver wanders the city of Gurgaon a week after the demise of his only son. He needs to talk. He needs to vent. He needs to mourn. But the city is barren and unforgiving. How will he grieve?

  • Vedant Chouksey
    Director
  • Vedant Chouksey
    Writer
  • Vedant Chouksey
    Producer
  • Nilay Pant
    Producer
  • Dhruv Singh Rajput
    Key Cast
  • Deepanshu Sharma
    Director of Photography
  • Anando Sakhre
    Sound Mixer and Editor
  • Devashish Patil
    Sound Mixer and Editor
  • Bhavya Dwivedi
    Music Composer
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    13 minutes 7 seconds
  • Country of Origin:
    India
  • Country of Filming:
    India
  • Language:
    Hindi
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Black & White and Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Vedant Chouksey

Vedant Chouksey is a physics student turned filmmaker from India. His focus is on screenwriting, direction and editing.

He was one of ten filmmaking fellows handpicked from India under the age of 30 for the Cine Impact Fellowship (2022). His documentary 'Majboor' on the plight of migrant labourers post covid was screened in the Ministry of Information & Broadcast and selected to be showcased at The Hyphen Film Festival (2023).

He was also one of the top 50 filmmakers in Netflix and Film Companion's filmmaking initiative, 'Take Ten' (2022).

His early student short films like 'Sh!t' and 'Atmanirbhar' have won 30+ awards at student filmmaking competitions across India.

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Director Statement

‘Eulogy to the Deaf’ is a deeply personal film which is why I am very excited to bring it forth to the jury and the audience.

March 2022. Delhi was recovering from the third wave of covid I was working on a documentary. Its motive was to investigate the state of backward groups of migrant labourers in Delhi NCR post their infamous exodus. The migrants were warm, inviting, cheerful despite the tough conditions that the system put them in. Of them all, the wittiest was an elderly woman. She had lived a rough life. She had lost her husband to an accident early on. Leaving her to raise her children while being the sole breadwinner. In our conversations, she revealed that she had lost her eldest, 17-year-old, son just this previous month. She spared no expense in his treatment. But all she was left with now were the memories of her son and a crushing debt. It was the third wave of COVID-19. The populace was tired and indifferent to the scare now. Keeping track of the deaths was simply tedious. The world was eager to move on and forget, more so in the big cities.

Gurgaon is a perpetually dusty barren city where the divide is stark. There are two categories of people here; those who order the goods and those who deliver them. It’s everyone for themselves. Trust is hard to come by, camaraderie is even rarer. A human is reduced simply to its purpose as a tool, an instrument. Existentialism is not something the poor can afford.

Inspired by Anton Chekhov’s style of explorative stories, ‘Eulogy to the Deaf’ is an appeal for a more empathetic world while examining loneliness, disillusionment of marginalised communities and the complexities of human relationships.