The Maids Movie

About the project: 

Based loosely on the play The Maids by Jean Genet - this short film is about two sisters - servants to an aging Madame in an upper class ancestral home, as spend their days playing transgressive power games.

The play is about people on the fringes of society and class – the outcasts – and their desire to be seen. Genet questions the hetro-normative representations of gender and sexuality in socially sanctioned lives – exploring the violence that exists in co-dependent relationships, bound in domesticity.

By taking the play as a point of departure the film explores the otherness, as the maids break open Madame's closet, wear her clothes and belongings, struggling and longing to become her. The film is an exploration of the feminine psyche and discovering the repercussions of domestication of women using live art, role play, performance, installation and spoken word. 

Current Status of the Project:

We completed our research and workshop period and have now immeresed into the pre – production of the film which includes wardrobe styling and look tests.

We have all our cast and crew confirmed for the shoot which starts on 27th June 2016.

Why am I crowd- funding?

So far we have managed to get some funding from the UK which covers our research and workshops. Also, the cast and crew are working on the film at absolutely no costs because this film inspires them in ways more than one. However to complete this film we need more funds - for production and distribution.

To create this surreal world of maids, all elements of this film need to be spot on, including reaching out to its audience nationally and internationally.

We believe crowd funding is the new culture. It’s a new way for people from all backgrounds to come support and produce creative work. Crowd funding also takes away the reigns of power from the hands of private investors and gives an opprtunity to artists and like minded people to create work that matters. It has the potential for a collective revolution. 

Our Wonderful Collaborators: 

1. Director/ Producer – Asawari Jagushte

Is a writer, director based in Mumbai who studied her Post graduation Diploma in The London Film School and her Masters in Experimental Film in Kingston University, London. Her main interests lie in experimenting and expanding the medium of film and mixing it with other art forms like performance, painting and installations. Asawari makes films across various cross media platforms. Asawari has also worked with a London based live art collective ‘The Ahhness of Things’ as a cinematographer in their promotional video and as a documentarian during their shows. She recently collaborated with experimental theatre collectives in India including The Company Theatre, Accelerated Intimacy and practicioners like Jyoti Dogra, Rupesh Tillu.

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2. Director of Photography – Sejal Shah

Sejal Shah is an Indian cinematographer. He has worked on a number of Bollywood films and advertisements. Sejal has done more than 250 commercials, including for major brands such as Indian Oil, Sprite, Royal Stag, Hyundai, Ford Endeavour, Black Berry, Honda, Nokia and so on. His Debut Feature, Silence Please... The Dressing Room was based on match fixing, Missed call which played in many Film Festivals. 

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3. Production & Costume Design – Julie Kagti

Combining functionality with beauty, Julie Kagti is responsible for bringing a new flavor to the fashion platter. Julie was born in Barhapjan, Tinsukia in Assam. Brought up as a regular tea garden kid, she was sent to Shillong when she was 13 years old to study in a boarding school. Whenever she would come home for the holidays, she would find herself engrossed watching her grandmother displaying her skills with the thread. It was most probably then that Julie picked up an interest towards the craft of weaving. Anyone residing in the greenery of Assam would let you know that nature is a big part of their lives in general. When surrounded by Nature’s bounty, it is difficult not to develop a love for nature. Similarly in the case of Julie, the aesthetics and color of her birth place affected her very strongly and the love for nature stuck to her through all these years. This is very much reflected in her clothes and designs.  

4. Costume Stylist – Rimjhim Sen

Animal lover. Animal friendly. Indigenous inspired. Travel enthusiast. Dreamer. Believer. stimulated by art & expression & anything zen. She works in the capacity of a Costume Designer/Fashion Stylist. Largely on Ad Films, Prints, Music Videos, Television and Features. Mentioned below is a summary of my work.

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5. Executive Producer/First AD – Varsha Panikar

Is an independent writer, director and videographer. Born in Delhi, India, currently lives in Mumbai. She holds a PG diploma in Film and TV from Xaviers Institute of Communication, Mumbai, an Honour’s degree in Germanistics from Department of Germanic and Romance Studies, Arts Faculty, Delhi University. She has works as a freelance director’s assistant on TV commercials.

Since childhood she developed a frenzied love for moving images, poetry, music and every form of art. Her creative through line is visual storytelling and her interests mainly lie in experimenting with the medium of film, while exploring stories through the universe of various art forms. She likes collaborating with various artists while focusing on bringing to light something thought in silence and meant to remain hidden.

Her debut music video Maya featuring Coshish, a Mumbai based prog-rock band, produced by Universal Music was listed in the top 10 music videos of 2015 by Rolling Stones.Currently working on various independent audio-visual projects along with a poetry-film. She is also working on a photo-poetry collection for publication.

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6. Sound Designer/Composer – Konarak Reddy

Konarak Reddy is a pioneer and legend among music aficionados in India. He is renowned for his finger-style playing, as well as for integrating Hindustani and Carnatic styles of improvisation into his guitar technique. He first studied western classical theory on guitar, and then became proficient on the sarod, which he studied with Gurus Debi Prasad Ghosh and Rajeev Taranath. His much talked about pulling technique on guitar and his beautiful alaaps come from his skill on the sarod. He studied jazz improvisation at Berklee College of Music and graduated with Honours from the Guitar Performance Program at Musician's Institute, Hollywood. His teachers have included guitar greats such as Joe Diorio, Scott Henderson and Peter Sprague. Over the years, Konarak has performed and toured with a range of world-class musicians including Claus Boesser-Ferrari, Jacques Stotzem, Peter Finger, Dr. L. Subramaniam, Ahmed El-Salamouny, Antonio Forcione, George Laval, Maynard Fergusson, Embryo, and Orexis. To create awareness around the guitar and its diverse styles, he initiated the idea of World Guitar Nights by hosting Peter Finger (Germany), Dylan Fowler (Wales), Claus Boesser-Ferrari (Germany) and Bob Bonastre (France), Don Ross (Canada) Sandor Szabo (Hungary) Masa Sumide (Japan) to perform in India every year from 2004 to 2009.

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7. Nihaarika Negi – Actor/Writer

Nihaarika Negi (UK/India) is a contemporary performance practitioner, whose work begins at the site of the body, often taking inter-disciplinary flights that weave through mediums of theatre, film, writing and live art.

She holds an MA in Physical Performance and Actor-Training (under Phillip Zarrilli, University of Exeter). She has collaborated with Howard Barker’s The Wrestling School, Mark Storor (ARTSADMIN), LOTOS Collective (Barbican). She is a member of performance collectives like ‘A Cloud Of Foxes’ (Roundhouse), Needless Alley (The King’s Head, BAC) and the Co-Artistic Director of UK Arts Council funded company  ‘The Ahhhness of Things’ (The Hat Factory, SPILL).

She has been twice honoured with the Best Supporting Actor Award at Thespo 8 – India’s youth theatre festival. Has won the title of Channel [V] ‘Campus Star,’ and been awarded Best Actor with CNBC-TV 18.

As a film-maker, she has just finished making a 60-minute surrealistic film titled ‘Labours Of An(Other) Solipsist.’ As a writer, she has just written Pushan Kripalani’s feature ‘The Threshold’ (with Rajat Kapur and Nina Gupta) and is currently working on  ‘Love In The Time Of Moral Policing’ - an official selection in the NFDC Romance Screenwriter’s Lab 2014 (India). Click here for more information on Nihaarika.

8. Kirtana Kumar - Actor

Kirtana is an actor, director, dramaturg and film-maker. She trained and performed for six years as an actor with The Asian-American Theatre Project at The Los Angeles Theatre Centre (LATC) and has a Master’s Degree in European Classics and American Literature. She has 30 years of experience as an actor and director. She has made several documentary films including the award winning Guhya. Her abiding interest is in creating new works with her company, Little Jasmine, with an emphasis on indigenous forms, texts, visuals, sounds, ideas used as a lens for contemporary concerns.  A few of these include My Children Who Should be Running Thru Vast Open Spaces…, Shakuntala, In the Hour of God, The Retreating World/Last Tuesday, Wedding Party and the upcoming Marathahalli Rani and The Abhimanyu Project. Her solo self-devised works include One Night in Paris and Unruly Women besides Dario Fo Medea. For the last five years she has been on tour in Europe with Schnawwl theatre’s Boy with a Suitcase, as dramaturg and assistant director. She works and travels extensively with theatre in the social sector and this has been a constant learning and inspiration. She has consulted with the Royal National Theatre (UK) Project Nadya, Common Ground Sign Dance Theatre (Liverpool), Path International’s Magnet Theatre etc. She is a trustee of Women Artists Group and runs Little Jasmine, Theatre Lab and Infinite Souls Farm & Artists Retreat. Being close to nature and her many animals feed her creative energy.

9. Rupesh Tillu – Actor/ Dramaturg

Is an actor, director and independent film-maker. Born in Mumbai, India, currently lives in Stockholm, Sweden. He holds MFA from The National School of Dramatic Arts (Teaterhögskolan) Stockholm, a bachelor’s degree in commerce and economics from Mumbai University. He has worked with several theatre companies such as Avikal Theatre Company, Mumbai, India, Urban Theatre Company, Sweden,Theater Slava of Sweden. He has done expeditions with Clown without Borders to Moldova, Palestine, Israel and Egypt. His vocational training includes one year Physical Theater at F.H.S.K Vårdinge By. Professional Clown training with Clowns without Borders Sweden. His debut documentary feature film The Living Gods is co-produced by the Swedish National Television.

10. Mahabanoo Mody Kotwal - Actor

Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal is a theatre actress in India, and owns a production company, Poor Box Productions. Despite Mahabanoo starting her professional career in the theatre rather late, she has worked with renowned film and theatre personalities in India and the UK. She has produced/directed/acted in Shirley Valentine, Art, Once I Was Young...Now I'm Wonderful!, (W)hole in the Head, Two Hot to Handle, The Vagina Monologues, amongst others.

How the funds will be utilized?

Artwork Courtesy: Nivedita S (Udaan Studio)

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