Ma.Ama
Father and son face awkward intimacies when caregiving roles are reversed.
Avinash, a silicon valley engineer returns to India to help care for his bedridden father. Unlike the comfort between the professional attendant and his father, Avi’s relationship is prickly. One afternoon, when the attendant is unavailable, Avi becomes desperate for help to avoid intimacy with his father.
Director
Shuchi Kothari has written and produced award winning feature films and shorts that have screened at over 100 international film festivals including, Cannes, Venice, Telluride and Toronto. Shit One Carries is her directorial debut. She teaches Screen Production at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
Director’s Note: This is very personal film, based on the true experiences of my father. It took me more than five years to prepare myself to write this script, which involves intimate conversation with my father about his past, which led me to delve into his painful memories. His wife and my mother passed away 25 years back, I was only two and half year old and I have no personal memories about her, all my memories are inherited from my siblings. The film germinates from the very fact of my quest to know who my mother was and what really happened to her, which none of my siblings are ready to open up for me. Though my father remarries he misses my mother very much and the void that she left behind couldn’t be fill. The film is the quest of both father and son to fill that gap.
I also made sure that everybody plays their own role in the film. My father himself plays the main character in the film. All our family member acted in the film as themselves. The villager came together to help me during the shoot.
Festivals/Awards
Jio Mumbai Film Festival 2018, Mumbai, India; Dharamsala International Film Festival 2018, Dharamsala, India