The countrywide lockdown forced filmmakers to resort to new techniques to shoot their films. During this period we saw many short films which were shot at or from artistes' homes. But doing so for a feature film is a different ball game altogether. Singapore-based Indian filmmaker Shilpa Krishnan Shukla took up the challenge and made Dots, a 95-minute film with dialogues in Hindi, English and Malayalam.
At the post-screening discussion with fans and journalists, Shukla revealed that she came up with the idea of making this film during the lockdown. "I was stuck at home and just thought I can utilize this time, so that's how the germ of an idea came," she said.
Dots has been shot remotely with each artiste working from home. The film features 10 well-known actors and actresses from six different industries, so, naturally, the next question was about the casting, to which Shukla said, "I had met most of these actors at various film festivals over the last two years. I anyway wanted to work with them in the future. But this lockdown happened and I thought that if I want to work with them, now is the best time as I can work with them remotely as well."
The film is set in the lockdown period and talks about five couples who connect with each other through an app. In the live chat session, Shukla, who has previously made award-winning films like Kathaah@8, disclosed that it took her only four days to write four scripts. "I wrote four scripts in four days and the fifth script took another week or so," she revealed.
The director also revealed that she had rigorous rehearsal sessions with the artistes. "So we had about 25 rehearsals and maybe another 25 tech runs and we shot the film over two weekends. It was all night shoots," she said.