SYNOPSIS
An elderly Tamil grandmother spends her day predicting the winner of the monthly pool within her covert financial association. Together with her assistant, she speculates and analyzes the possible outcomes, as the excitement and intrigue of the underground money club captivate her thoughts.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
In this captivating short film, the director’s vision is brought to life through a powerful message – highlighting the creative solutions people of colour have to find to navigate systemic financial barriers. Contrasting the stigma pertaining to seniors of colour, the film presents their innovative and complex approaches to providing support to their communities. The intergenerational cycle of survival amongst people of colour as newcomers is explored, with specific attention to the independence of time and setting. The mood is set through a juxtaposition of a lower-income apartments compared a high-end underground club, yet the tempo emphasizes the pertinence of time throughout the film through sound and visual cues that links these two together. The film also features Tamil independent music that corresponds to our bicultural identify; this is also evident with our cinematography, which blends inspiration from South Asian Tamil cinema and Western Cinema to create a unique definition of tone. The visual style leverages spotlights and close-ups of our environment to bring a melodramatic aesthetic to our superficial storytelling. The film jumps between timelines using transitions through objects that are implicitly timeless, such as telephones, money and clocks. By incorporating Western Tamil-speaking actors, we helped strengthen the authenticity in our dialogue and legitimacy to our concept from a narrative perspective. Finally, the editing is done with cultural sensitivity in mind: our goal being to ensure that the film represents the respect and culture of the Tamil identify here in Western countries