Ice People: Naren Multani, ad film maker

In dialogue with the divine

Naren Multani

Ad film maker Naren Multani is hoping to gather some more accolades this year at the Lausanne Underground Short Film Festival. He has just sent off his third short film, 9 Minutes Nirvana, to the festival which attracts some of best talent in the world.

9 Minutes is a single-shot film about a conversation with God on a beach in Goa. God and spirituality are obviously matters close Multani's heart. His first film Mindgame, shot in an experimental abstract format, was also about a God who simply refuses to get involved with the everyday hassles of mortals.

One day Multani was waiting for a bus when he found himself praying for the the bus to come quickly. "Then I asked myself what if he actually had to come down to sort out all our hassles? It would drive him crazy!"

That's how Mindgame was conceived. "All the answers to our questions are within us," he adds. The sequel, 9 Minutes, is an extension of the same thought. God in this film is a glamorous girl in beach wear, and the protagonist's constant surprise at a glam gal running the world is an underlying thread in the film.

Spirituality hit Multani, creative director (films) at the advertising agency McCann Erickson, early in life. "I had seen life by the time I was 26, so I had nowhere to turn to except God." His earlier two films are still doing the rounds of festivals in the US and Europe.

Mindgame was shown at New York, San Francisco and Lausanne. The second film Dead End, a suspense thriller, was shown at New York, Raindance, Berlin, Launsanne, Venice and London and will debut in India at Hyderabad in India next month.

The Indian audience he feels is not yet ready for the genre. The short film is meant to make you think.

"Abroad the audiences are more sophisticated and there is a readymade audience for these films. Showing them to an Indian audience I feel is slightly risky "" you always wonder whether they got the point or not."