Private Project

Slow Wave

Living in the current times often leaves me questioning “existence.” With existence comes the fear of its absence. The film is a documentation of such an experience and an attempt to pen down fear and loss. It helped me share a dialogue with my parents around unexpressed fears and sorrows hidden deep down, thus opening a channel of accepting the inevitable, death!

In the month of October 2021, parts of Pune city witnessed flash floods. With many houses flooded, some in the low-lying areas washed away. My elderly parents were by themselves, trying to save all they could. I lost most of my family photographs, keepsakes saved since childhood and my cameras. My mother was coping with the receding second wave of Covid to which she had lost her brother. I was trying to cope up with life, in general. This inability to bargain with the fear of loss and death encouraged me to create what I could as a way of dealing with it.

This personal essayist film acts as a turning point in my adulthood. With my cameras drowned and dead, I tried creating the sensation that I felt using my phone camera, an old point and shoot that died in the process of shooting this film, recovered family photographs, watercolor and with whatever was left of the loss.

  • Pooja Kadam
    Director
  • Pooja Kadam
    Producer
  • Mandakini Kadam
    Key Cast
  • Pandurang Kadam
    Key Cast
  • Saptak Sarkar
    Sound Design and Mix
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Experimental, Short, Student
  • Genres:
    Experimental, essayist, Diary film
  • Runtime:
    9 minutes 17 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    May 1, 2023
  • Production Budget:
    40 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    India
  • Country of Filming:
    India
  • Language:
    English, Marathi
  • Shooting Format:
    digital
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
Director Biography - Pooja Kadam

Pooja Kadam, is an independent filmmaker, a mixed media visual artist and a trained cinematographer. She completed her bachelors in Computer Science Engineering from the University of Pune and is currently a student of Cinema at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Calcutta specialising in Cinematography.
She shoots short films independently and works on independent and commercial films as an Assistant Cinematographer and a Gaffer. Her short fiction, MeghChaya was screened at the Moscow Short Film Festival and the Pune Short Film Festival.
She is currently working on her documentary based in a small village in Maharashtra

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Director Statement

The film attempts at recalling memory both conscious and subconscious, non linearly. The narrative is fragmented and edited to reflect the stream of consciousness, while the fragments have been woven together to give an illusion of linearity.

The form explored by the film is influenced by loss both tangible and intangible in nature. The urge to preserve the bodily sensations and process them as a response to what was felt led to the genesis of the visual language of this film.

The usage of mix media and the celluloid like impressions lend to its texture, its dream-like space and tactile nature.