In its efforts to offer something unique to Goa and to the world, Révas Productions, a company born out of pure love for cinema, recently released a short film ‘Chase’ on their YouTube channel. Founder and filmmaker Gopinath Chandelkar speaks on his creative journey to TGLife
BHARATI PAWASKAR
Révas Productions, an amateur production house from Goa, announced the release of their short film ‘Chase’ on their YouTube channel recently and is overwhelmed by the response this film received. “It’s a film depicting chemistry between a boy and a non-living object - a ‘bottle’ - where the bottle takes the story ahead. It was a photography challenge and handling live actors is easy but to work with a non-living object was a different ball game altogether. But with a journey full of hurdles, especially for a team that is fresh in handling short film production, ‘Chase’ did well and attracted attention of the judges at the Environmental Film Festival 2018,” states Gopinath Chandelkar, founder and director at Révas Group. A mechanical engineer and businessman by profession (CEO, Vaishali Foods - blended spices division of Chandelkars), Gopinath is a film-maker by passion.
Creating this platform to allow a free hand to the Goans and showcase their talent to the world, Révas Productions is Gopinath’s brainchild and the talk of the town for its recent in-house creation that made waves in Goa. Admitting that it was his passion for music, cinema and creativity that led to the birth of Révas Productions, Gopinath, talks about the documentaries, short films and songs that his production house created in the past few months.
“We also made a short film ‘Taar - The Chord’ in 50 hours when we participated in India Film Project 2017 in association with ‘Being Goan’. It was selected among the top 10 films at the Kadar Film Festival, Mumbai. We, along with YUVA, also hosted the All Goa Short Film Festival 2018 in May. It was a workshop on film making as well as a short film competition. The young budding filmmakers as well as the seasoned ones from the state of Goa participated in both - the competition as well as the workshop,” recalls Gopinath.
Révas Productions has also won the first runner-up prize for the short film making contest Flicker, organised by Weirdshot Films in association with WittyFeed India and VIVACITY18, sponsored by Reunite Café, Jaipur. Révas was selected for the round 2 of the contest which was a 24 hour filmmaking challenge with the theme ‘What If…’ For Gopinath and his team it was a great challenging experience.
Beginning with the documentaries, Révas Productions created a documentary on Mallinath Devasthan re-development phase which was our tribute to our family deity. “This was our biggest project so far and it was highly appreciated by all Mahajans and others as well. I am sure we are marching on the creative path with devotion and commitment,” quips a happy Gopinath.
Elaborating on how ‘Chase’ began he points out, “We made ‘Chase’ when we decided to participate in the short film making competition. The Entertainment Society of Goa in association with Kala Kirti organised Goa Environmental Film Festival 2018 wherein a short film competition was held in two categories - for schools and colleges at state level and individual category at national level. “We participated in the individual category at national level, and though we did not make it to the first two, all judges appreciated our theme and the presentation. That’s good enough.”
It was both - exciting and challenging. After deciding to participate in the short film challenge, the team discussed lots of stories. Finally Akhil Prabhu Verlekar and Raghuvir Mahale came up with this concept of the story between a boy and a bottle that matched with the environmental pollution issue. “We thought we could give a message to the society. Taking our concept ahead, we roped in two of our expert cinematographers, Pravin Naik and Saish Pai Raikar to join us. I handled the detailed script and screenplay. All of us put our brains together and created the necessary concoction and the plot was ready to go on the sets,” recalls Gopinath.
After several meetings and discussions on various aspects and situations, the shoot was planned early morning in the heart of the city - in the midst of crowded market, streets and common people. “It was real tough,” admits Gopinath who had to face many other issues too - rain, traffic, camera faults, lighting problem etc. But as the saying goes, ‘When the going gets tough, tough gets going’ and the team surmounted all the hurdles with sheer determination and the shoot was complete. After the post production work, ‘Chase’ was ready with its theme - ‘It’s our gift to nature returned with thanks’ wherein the carelessness of a boy makes a non-living object (a bottle in this case) chases him back in his life.
Révas Productions is more than just a production house. It’s a company born out of pure love for cinema. “We are a team of different people, but our aim to entertain people around remains the same. We look forward to build a platform for unique content for Indian cinema and reach globally with rich Indian flavours,” shares Gopinath who extended activities to a non-profit organisation - Révas Foundation which he started in order to bring the underprivileged children in the mainstream society and offer some moments of joy.
“Parents Rekha and Srinivas Chandelkar, better-half Dipti and brother Gaurish are my support systems. Révas Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Révas Group and we believe that it is our humanitarian responsibility to take care of the needy and thus we call it our duty. We believe in bringing happiness around by our gestures and celebrating birthdays of the underprivileged children. Creativity and philanthropy are the two things that lead us in life, as a team,” concludes Gopinath.
