Film on pandemic fear and pregnancy

The film brings together the desire want to tell stories of current relevance

'Smt Dr Kulkarni’, a short film, written by Sundar, and acted by Shilpa Rudrappa, released recently as part of the ‘Closeup Stories’ series by BlackTicket Studios.

It brought together the duo’s want to tell stories of relevance.

The film, an eight-minute-long video of a pregnant woman looking back into her past and at hopes, aspirations and worries of tomorrow, has garnered attention online.

Shilpa, the actress who was actually nine months pregnant when the video was shot, says it was a learning and meaningful experience.

She says, “I shot the video two weeks before the delivery. The story is about a woman, Dr Kulkarni’s wife, who got married in her 30s and has gone through two miscarriages. She has a protective husband, a doctor, who is always worried about her health. Her husband is attending to Covid-19 patients for the last 15 days, and she is away from her parents and in-laws.”

In the video, Shilpa’s character recollects how her husband would remind her to take tablets after every meal. “Dr Kulkarni calls the unborn child Subba, the name of his grandfather. The moment the father calls the name, the child would move in the womb,” notes Shilpa.

The video comes to a traumatic end, much like many other families and stories of many Covid-19 warriors around.

“Pregnant women are susceptible to Covid-19 and are going through challenging times now. In reality, even I was advised to skip my final scans, due to the virus scare,” she says.

How was it shot?

The shot film was shot at home, on her iPhone X.

“The only requirement for the story was that the belly should be seen. Since I was in my final trimester, I couldn’t stand for long. I experienced breathlessness while shooting too, which added to the content,” Shilpa says.

She has been applauded for taking up a sensitive topic by many including film director B Suresh and music director V Manohar.

“If a subject is current, I like working with it. I wanted to work on something connected to the coronavirus scare, and real situations around it, and Sundar sir had the perfect script for it,” she says.