RAJ

LOGLINE
A new born baby thrown into the trash on the streets of India’s religious capital Allahabad is adopted by a well meaning, middle class couple. At the age of 20 the boy accidentally comes to know of his birth. Disillusioned and unable to accept the reality, he runs away from his family to go to Allahabad in search of his real identity. His journey coincides with the largest religious festival in India, the Kumbh Mela.

SYNOPSIS
Raj Gupta – a first year MBBS student of a Delhi college is eager to return home for the holidays. A sudden offer of a scholarship exam makes him cancel his trip. A question about his sense of identity in the personality section of the exam troubles Raj. Later he talks about this with his friend Imran, gets drunk and makes an impromptu rap about his struggle to get a good education. The next day Raj discovers an old document in one of the books that he had asked his parents to send to him. It is a letter from an orphanage about the adoption of a child born on 16-11-1996, the same date as his birth day. He confronts his parents about this. They try to hide the truth from him, but finally admit that Raj really was adopted and that his birth mother – an unmarried labour worker had given him away as he was born a bastard child. Raj then has a mental breakdown. He feels rejected by his birth mother. He also wants to know more about her.
Raj searches online for details of the orphanage. He finds an old picture of the building, located in Allahabad, where the Kumbh Mela is currently being held. Raj sets out on his bike for Allahabad.

On reaching Allahabad he desperately shows the old picture to various people, asking them if they know the location. No one is able to help him. Raj shows the picture to a group of men. They make lewd suggestions about Raj’s mother and a fight breaks out. The men leave Raj beaten and bruised, and take his phone, money and motorcycle.

A traveler then takes Raj to his tent. He praises Raj, gives him a herbal pill and attempts to molest him. A drugged Raj barely manages to run away. Raj runs around in a delirium and then falls unconscious. Here in a dream Raj speaks with Lord Shiva, who attempts to counsel the disturbed young man. Wandering around he sees an old man in the Kumbh Mela looking for his son. A stall owner informs the old man that his son has abandoned him. This makes Raj recall how well his parents treat him. Later Raj meets a young sadhu. The young sadhu also urges Raj to rise above his negative emotions. Raj finally speaks with a rude official of the orphanage who cruelly informs Raj that no details of the birth mother can be shared without her specific consent. Raj feels anguished and lost. In this state of sadness, he runs into a little girl Arya who got separated from her parents. Raj helps unite Arya with her mother. The experience changes Raj and he begins to feel grateful to the parents who adopted him. With a new light in his eyes, Raj rediscovers the Kumbh Mela. Finally with his heart at peace, Raj takes a dip in the holy Ganga river.

Artistic Approach
Raj is a film where simple lives get complicated by a dark secret, and identities are shattered. The film takes us from Delhi, the capital of India, filled with smog, sounds and sights that seek constant attention, on a 400 mile journey to Allahabad during the Kumbh Mela festival, a religious event which happens once every 12 years, attended by millions of pilgrims from all over India. The cross country road trip is filled with beautiful open landscapes, along with the grey foggy pollution of the national highway. In Allahabad, the Kumbh is filled in incredible colors, characters and a nightmarish carnival atmosphere. The nights are filled with harsh fluorescent lights and the days with muddy light of the river. I had the amazing opportunity to take our cast and film there during the most recent Kumbh Mela, giving me some incredible footage against the background of this unique event. I plan the film to combine the aesthetics of Indian folk art and the backgrounds of the kumbh Mela with handheld docu-style cameras with a very fluid poetic way of moving the camera to get intimate and personal with the characters and their emotions. I also love to hold the camera on my actors and let them lead me into silence, stay still and not move the camera too much.

The other unique feature of this film is that it will be punctuated by animated sequences throughout. My father ran an animation studio from our family home in my childhood. My world was full of art and color, and I was given the freedom to draw on the walls of the house even! This early exposure to the raw textures and forms of art has left a lasting impact. I also have a background of over 25 years in visual effects and animation studios around the world, particularly Rhythm & Hues, where I was the first person on the ground in India to set up the studio branch. I’ve worked on multiple Academy award winning films during my career. This mix of influences has given me a love of all kinds of physical and digital media animation techniques, which I have been experimenting with in my own short films. I am also a painter, and love to see people beyond their physical form, and create abstract portraits. I will use this extensive background to create a wide variety of animated sequences throughout the film that expresses the inner psychological worlds of the characters. This will give the film a unique visual style, and storytelling medium.

Sound, music and lyrics are also very important to me, and I write songs for my own short films. I am working closely with many artists and folk singers in India and Taiwan for the sound of the flute. I’m also working with musicians here in LA. My lead actor Harsh also has many talents as a musician, so we have choreographed a song where is playing a mud pot and singing inside the pot to understand the impact of how words travel in different environments. His character creates rap and beatbox music in the film also.

As this project is a one-man kind of a film, I feel the merging of different mediums will create a unique cinematic experience. From various natural medium 2D animation techniques, to potentially shooting scenes on a virtual production set with Unreal Engine, to the raw docu-style footage in the Indian environments, it will all accentuate the emotions of the young man who is the central character and will play a huge role in creating a unique kind of storytelling from an independent filmmakers point of view.