SYNOPSIS
In a sleepy mountain village in a dystopian India or thereabouts, the lively and enterprising Lovely runs a lingerie shop with its own quirks and enchantments for villagers and shop-owner alike. Yet, it is a charmed existence that is precariously perched at the edge of devastating change. As insidious schemes of allegiance cheerily launched by the Ministry of Belonging begin to cast a shadow on the pocket of tolerance known to her all her life, Lovely finds herself scrambling to reclaim her rightful place in an uncertain realm.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
I grew up in India with a mixed heritage, both in terms of religion and ethnicity and understood early the significance of being the ‘other’. Theatre invariably became the haven where all of us could belong in a shared existence. Lovely & Tip-Top was initially conceived as a play, but due to the pandemic and the dystopian constraints it imposed, we opted to create a short film in the mountain villages of Uttarakhand. In recent years, there is even greater polarisation, in the state. On a larger national level, new laws have been proposed that have the potential of further marginalising the ‘other’. These are the concerns that drive me and I decided to work with comedy and satire. We were a very small crew, and the supporting actors were mostly people from the town itself and nearby villages, who invariably hosted us everywhere. As a first-time film director I drew from the theatre of the absurd to create a dystopian world that is unfolding before our eyes. I thought it was the right grammar for the project. Seeking in dark humour, small rays of light.