Richa Chadha teams up with Cargo director Arati Kadav for a sci-fi short

With the COVID pandemic induced lockdown, many filmmakers have turned to alternative mediums and modes to keep their creative fires going. Cargo (2019) director Arati Kadav is among them. The filmmaker is set to begin her next sci-fi project with actress Richa Chadha in the lead. 

Kadav reached out to Chadha to play a prominent role in her short. The actress, known to favour experiments, was excited to collaborate with Kadav, as the script was unique.

On her part, the filmmaker is among the rare directors currently with a penchant for science fiction. She has already created a novel film titled 55 kms/sec about living in a world that is on the edge. The title itself is indicative of the film’s subject, believes the director. 

The director made her debut with the critically acclaimed sci-fi film, Cargo, which premiered at the 2019 MAMI Mumbai Film Festival but also won the Best Sci-Fi feature, and Audience Choice awards at the 2019 Miami International Film Festival. 

Speaking of the project, Kadav said, "While we are all bracing ourselves for the new normal, we made this short film as a fun exercise. It was a great idea and my team and I saw it as a way of continuing to work to cheer ourselves up. I met some spectacular and fantastic people on our virtual set. We are happy that we all could remotely come together for something that was a warm, beautiful, humbling, and unifying experience."

Chadha said " Arati is an engineer turned filmmaker. She has an interesting vision and aces at science fiction stuff, as well as portraying the human connections. I loved collaborating with her and actor Mrinal Dutt. This was a challenging shoot as we had to do everything ourselves, from hair and make up to recording sound but it was well worth the effort. I am happy that we were able to create something thought-provoking and beautiful even in these grim times."