Every once a while, we love to get ourselves dirty in the process of working on experimental projects.
This one film, shot pre-Covid and edited post-Covid was one of them.
 

Ashanti, an experimental short film directed, written, and produced by Priyanka Sarkar was a collaboration between Chitra Saga and Laidback Films.
Visualizing the rebellious nature of the 70s’ in a fantasy-filled manner while focusing majorly on human emotions, feelings, thoughts, and experiences. The film is a portrayal of the struggle of the subconscious.

The film's protagonist is subjected to recurrent behavior of immersing oneself in a self-dystopian world. Luna Starr searches for a utopian peace and becomes obsessed with the vision of her ideal man, which is nothing but an illusion. Sky was indeed, the dark illusion with his captivating gleaming eyes and alluring smile. In hours of darkness, he seemed as vivid as the North Star holding out a ray of hope but, only to deceive her.

Her intention quickly takes over as she starts to weave her own sleep cycle with the help of Hoppie Lojens, symbolizing a magical bullet but, falls prey to the darkness of a deceiving romance. The more the bullet shows its magic, the more she gets sucked into the fool’s paradise.

In this non-narrative short, the sense of freedom is enjoyed with exaggerated trends through anti-conformity, self-actualization, and revolt through a colorful expression of individual choice. The film is a perfect absurdist and distorted hovering between imagination and reality, complementing the sole character’s addictive personality, who does not stop following her heart until the forbidden, rather tragic love story leads to an intersection of dreamscape and reality, which leaves her in a state of contemplation amidst the chaos, while she moves around in spirals and drowning deep down only to let go.