Saibal Chatterjee New Delhi

LOS Angeles - based Umakanth Thumrugoti’s debut feature, 7 Days in Slow Motion, is anything but your average children’s film. For one, it is about children all right but it isn’t only for them. Moreover, unlike Indian cinema of this genre, it does not lapse into over-simplification nor does it fall back on overt melodrama for impact.

The unique tone and tenor of 7 Days in Slow Motion, a film about the adventures of three Hyderabad schoolboys who stumble upon a lost movie camera and decide to make the most of it, stem primarily from Umakanth’s cinematic roots. “I was sure from the very outset that I’d make a film that wouldn’t talk down to either children or their parents,” he says.

7 Days in Slow Motion addresses serious issues related to the pangs of growing up within an education system that places a heavy premium on learning by rote and of being deprived of the little joys of childhood under the relentless pressure exerted by parents and teachers. But it does so without working itself up into a lather of platitudes and pat conclusions. The refreshing lightness of touch ensures that the message the film delivers is couched in a simple, entertaining format.

As a Disney hand for 15 years, Umakanth cut his teeth in the realm of animation feature films during the making of Lion King before going on to work in a wide array of roles in the development and production of titles like Pocahontas, Chicken Little and Bolt. “I admire the
Disney tradition of filmmaking,” says Umakanth. “A film like Lion King is hugely entertaining but it also provides insights into life. Films from the Disney and Pixar stables have this commendable quality.”

But there is much more to 7 Days in Slow Motion than the exceptional technical and storytelling skills that his Disney stint has helped Umakanth imbue. He says: “It’s a feel-good film about children. But it isn’t preachy. I want the entire family to come and watch it.”

The film’s story, though rooted in reality, has a strong element of fantasy underlining it. An American visitor, who is in town for an international film festival, loses his camera. Ravi, a sprightly schoolboy whose principal grouse is that the pie chart of his life (as dictated by his stern mother) has no room for fun, gets his hands on the gadget. In the hope of impressing his favourite movie actress, Ravi and two of his friends embark upon an audacious enterprise.

The boys have only seven days to make a film – the American is in town for a week and the camera has to be returned before he leaves. Despite many hiccups and delays, Ravi goes all out. In the end, he emerges with a film that sets the cat among the pigeons and threatens his own peace of mind. The incomprehensible, duplicitous world of adults impinges upon his life in a way it had never done before. The camera captures too many truths for comfort and his parents and friends are antagonised.

Ravi now wants to wash his hands off filmmaking for good. “Films are dangerous,” he tells the American as he hands over the camera. “Only good films are dangerous,” replies the latter. The implication is clear: there simply aren’t enough good films going around. But does that mean that Umakanth’s offbeat but engaging film will be accorded a decent release?

7 Days in Slow Motion has much going for it. It provokes and disturbs even as it draws its strength from generous doses of humour and the innocence of childhood. 7 Days in Slow Motion has the makings of a mainstream success a la Hyderabad Blues provided it is promoted and positioned right. But Umakanth is aware that getting 7 Days in Slow Motion out into the Indian market, which is dominated by a particular kind of star-driven, commercially-oriented fare, is going to be a big challenge. “We are exploring all possibilities,” he says.

In certain ways, 7 Days in Slow Motion is akin to the youthful urban dramas that occasionally find takers in the multiplexes. But in look, feel and spirit, it goes beyond the confines of that genre. The film uses English, Hindi and Telugu on the soundtrack. “In a middle class public school setting in Hyderabad, that is the mix that children typically use,” says the director.

For producer Soumya Sriraman, the absence of a space for meaningful middle-of-the-road cinema in India is a worry. “You either have big, star-driven films or small offbeat films that exist on the fringes,” she laments. “There is nothing in between. There is little scope for films like the ones that, for instance, Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Basu Chatterjee used to make.”

Umakanth took six months off from Disney tomake 7 Days in Slow Motion. He encountered a false start. “The Indian production company that had initially come on board backed out from its commitment at the eleventh hour, leaving us high and dry,” he recalls. But once the delayed project was back on the rails, the shoot was wrapped up in 37 days flat, “on time and on budget”, adds Umakanth.

He then returned to Disney to finish working on Bolt before quitting the job to begin work on his second feature. It is a pan-Indian theme and could be shot anywhere, but he says he would prefer to set it in Hyderabad again so that he can use the very unit that he trained during the making of 7 Days in Slow Motion.

The idea of his first feature emerged during a lunch recess conversation on the Disney premises when someone showed Umakanth a poster of Dhoom and commented that it looked “like a children’s film”. But Dhoom wasn’t obviously a film meant for children. That set Umakanth thinking and as one thing led to another he decided to give a genuine children’s film a shot.

He says: “Although the basic premise of 7 Days in Slow Motion’ is a bit morbid – it alludes to a bridge in Hyderabad which, on the day that examination results are announced in the city, has a blanket of security thrown on it in order to prevent students from committing suicide – it is a film with a positive spin.”

Umakanth says that he would like to make films that “enhance the worldview of the audience, something that mainstream Indian films do not usually do”. Like its young protagonist, 7 Days in Slow Motion has a battle on its hands.

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