Valay

Lata a 65 year old widow, lives in her ancestral house in the village of Malavli near Lonavala. Surrounded by hills on all sides, Lata’s house breathes into a forest. Lata’s search for solitude is faced with loneliness. A young adivasi boy Mohan works in Lata's house. Lata and Mohan share an intimate bond. Mohan wants to leave the village for the city in search of a better life. Lata doesn’t want Mohan to leave.

  • Koel Sen
    Director
  • Koel Sen
    Writer
  • Film & Television Institute of India
    Producer
  • Meena Naik
    Key Cast
    "Lata"
    Hrudayantar (Marathi Feature)
  • Project Type:
    Short
  • Runtime:
    26 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    February 20, 2018
  • Production Budget:
    40,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    India
  • Country of Filming:
    India
  • Language:
    Marathi
  • Shooting Format:
    35mm colour
  • Aspect Ratio:
    1:1.66
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    Yes
  • 11th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK) 2018
    Trivandrum
    India
    July 18, 2018
    Indian Premiere
    Official Selection Short Fiction
  • 9th Jagran Film Festival Mumbai and Delhi 2018
    MUMBAI
    India
    September 27, 2018
    Official Selection Short Fiction Competition
  • 7th IndiEarth Exchange, Chennai 2018
    Chennai
    India
    December 1, 2018
    Official Selection Short Fiction Competition
  • 10th Indian Film Festival of Bhubaneshwar, 2019
    Bhubaneshwar
    India
    January 28, 2019
    Official Selection Student Competition
  • 2nd South Asian Short Film Festival Kolkata, 2019
    KOLKATA
    India
    March 8, 2019
    Official Selection Short Fiction
Director Biography - Koel Sen

KOEL SEN
Mumbai, Maharashtra, INDIA

Koel Sen completed her Masters in Film Directing from the Film & Television Institute of India in 2018 with her diploma film Valay, a 26 minute short fiction. In 2017, her 17 minute short documentary Bahava, won the Emerging Talent Award at the International Association of Women in Film, Radio and Television (IAWRT). Her earlier short film Adhar (12 mins) was screened at many student short film festivals and in 2016, Koel won a scholarship to study French Documentary Cinema at La Fémis, (Institut des hautes études cinématographiques, IDHEC) Paris.

She is currently Koel is Faculty of Film Direction at the Whistling Woods International, a film school based in Mumbai. She is also working on her first feature film script.

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Director Statement

VALAY is a Sanskrit term used in Marathi which means a circular aura emanating from a person or a thing, almost like a halo of light. This film is not just the aura of a particular person, but also of an entire space. In this case it is the space of the ancestral house surrounded by a forest that the film is set in. The story of Valay unfolds inside an ancient 120 year old house and in the surrounding village of Malavli, near Lonavala in Maharashtra.

As the director of this film, what fascinated me most was this location, that feels extremely rural, yet it is between two very important and big cities of Maharashtra, Mumbai and Pune. The village of Malavli is inhabited by mostly a very aboriginal community of people many of whom are farmers and hunter-gatherer tribes mixed with some upper-class families whose ancestors were landowners in these areas.

Emotion is a common quality associated with all human-relations. And in all kinds of relationships, complexities exist. My film Valay is exploring one such complexity that is shared between Lata a 65 year old widow and her young male servant Mohan who works in her house. A young Adivasi girl Kavita comes to learn English with Lata. Mohan is in love with Kavita but cannot detach himself from the aura created by Lata and the house. One day Mohan decides to leave for good.