Private Project

Portraits : 2020

Portraits : 2020 is an intimate observation of how the pandemic had affected us as human beings both on a social as well as a psychological level.
It observes 6 scenes occurring around a death : a desperate mad man in search of food uses the stigma of the disease; a single mothers loses her job as the world's of her children collide; a young couple is forced to leave behind something in their rented apartment; a family helplessly watches as one of their deceased loved ones is carried away like luggage; a phone call from behind a grilled window, that never gets answered; and finally a PPE clad covid worker finds escape from the weight of his profession, in a song.
As the sun sets over such a day, we are left wondering whether we can hold onto our humanity in such dark times.

  • Amartya Ray
    Director
    Our Mountain Valley Home (short docu)
  • Amartya Ray
    Writer
  • Samrat
    Writer
    22 Yards
  • Amartya Ray
    Producer
  • Kino Eye
    Producer
  • Chaiti Ghoshal
    Producer
  • Chaiti Ghoshal
    Key Cast
  • Shovan Chakraborty
    Key Cast
  • Samrat
    Key Cast
  • Amartya Ray
    Key Cast
  • Soham Dey
    Cinematography
  • Arka Dey
    Sound Reording and Sound Design
  • Ranajit Ray
    Edit
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Genres:
    Drama, Dark Humour
  • Runtime:
    10 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    December 31, 2020
  • Country of Origin:
    India
  • Country of Filming:
    India
  • Language:
    Bengali, English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Amartya Ray

Amartya Ray is a 27 year old film direction alumni from Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). His directorial works:
- Portraits: 2020 (IDSFFK Official Selection 2021;Fur gold lotus for best fiction PSBT challenge; Official selection at Changing Perspectives International Film Festival) - short fiction
- Our Mountain Valley Home (officially selection at Dharamshala International Film Festival 2020; Official selection in main competition for IDSFFK 2021) - short documentary
- Dhulo (FTII short fiction project)
He is currently co-creating a web drama and writing for his first feature. Alongside this he plans on making an experimental documentary mapping the monsoon during the lockdown.
Amartya is also a singer-songwriter and an actor. He has acted in three feature films, two of which have been released nationally and one still in production. He believes that the inter-disciplinary forms allow him to learn from each other and ultimately help in telling a better story.
Amartya wants to identify the “human” in today’s changing world through his narratives, images, sounds and mis-en-scene.

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Director Statement

Using the fixed perspective form of tableaux shots, Portraits : 2020 brings to life through its mis-en-scene, images we have seen during the pandemic. The film incorporates simultaneous characters and events which occur through different parts of the frame making the audience choose where to focus its attention. The single shot/long take form is a reminder of stage performance viewing and tries to present a sort of theatre unfolding in front of us; one where we take into account the events shown and not lose ourselves in them completely.

It builds intimate portraits around the biggest effect of the pandemic – death.
Sometimes moving through the absurd, sometimes the comic and sometimes the lyrical, the film tries to remember the things that make us human.