The story of the short film Promise — starring Sabyasachi Chakrabarty, Udita Das and Biplab Keshari Mohanty — revolves around a father, daughter and her lover. It starts with an “emotionally distraught girl (Joyita), who, unable to cope with her lover’s (Neel) hectic work schedule, lets the vulnerable side of her take charge. Then she has a heartfelt conversation with her doting father (Uday) and he narrates a life-changing story to her. The film brings out the subtle nuances of a relationship and finally ends with a message of accepting the person and situation”. The Telegraph chat with director Dikshita Das, who has written the story, screenplay, dialogues, and edited the film...
What was the genesis of Promise?
Promise is an amalgamation of personal experiences, some real-life observations and of course fiction. So it’s mostly from my own personal experience when I used to be in a long-distance relationship, the situations we went through and our approach towards handling the situation no matter good or bad. Promise is the sum total of our understanding, learning and realisations in a relationship where the love and longing for each other has always been more than the distance.
Why did you want to tell this story?
In today’s fast-paced society, giving up has become an attitude and impatience a virtue. Unfortunately this attitude also affects relationships in a big way and majority of break-ups or divorces happen because of misunderstanding, which is a result of giving-up attitude. We have to understand that relationships are something to be nurtured with time, patience, love, respect, understanding and promise. Giving up or breaking a promise is easy.
Sticking on takes effort and time and that defines one’s character. When we promise something to someone, we actually promise ourself first. So, it’s majorly how seriously you take yourself rather than the other person. So, Promise is more a self-character-defining word rather than just an act of love or otherwise and I strongly feel this virtue needs to be re-inculcated.
(Left to Right) Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Dikshita with Barun Chanda
How did you decide on the cast?
From the very initial stage of writing the story and mainly the father’s character (Uday), I could literally imagine Benuda’s (Sabyasachi Chakrabarty) face with dialogues and actions throughout the process of visualisation. So, I was very clear that if anyone is playing Uday, it’s Benuda and I started finding ways to get in touch with him with all my might. Initially, it was tough when I shared my wish to cast Benuda with some people. The reactions were like, ‘Are you mad? Why would he entertain you? Don’t waste your time. You are being too ambitious etc etc.’
But at the same time I got enough support and encouragement from my close ones that kept me going. Director Sudeshna Roy (my mentor) helped me reach him and then I took things ahead from there.
Coming to the casting of Neil and Joyita’s character, Biplab and Udita were involved from the very first day of the project, right from the stage of ideation and throughout.
So the way they conceived and understood the depth of their characters, I thought it’s best they play it.
Moreover, Biplab has worked with some prolific directors of the Kannada film industry in various projects as actor, storyboard artiste and animation supervisor.
On the other hand, Udita has been working in the Bengali film industry as an actor in various films, serials. So it was a win-win situation for me where I didn’t have to cast freshers or inexperienced actors.
How was your shooting experience?
Promise is a frame narrative, that is, it’s a story that has a story inside. So this clearly indicates multiple locations, time zone, more characters etc. The challenging part was dealing with kids of different age groups, and we have five kids in the film.
The songs were shot in multiple locations of Meghalaya. We are lucky to have some of the industry’s most experienced people associating with us and sharing the burden to make this film a success.
