Indian animation filmmaker's feature film to premiere at the Rotterdam Festival

Throughout history human beings have always sought to align with political social and cultural ideals that they felt was the right moral order of the day Empires have been birthed risen and fallen in pursuit of some goals only to give rise to new ones that eventually go through the same cycle of growth and deathAnimation filmmaker Ishan Shuklarsquos feature film Schirkoa In Lies We Trust takes inspiration from humanityrsquos history of gravitating towards a ruling code of conduct The 103minute film will be premiering at the 2024 International Film Festival of Rotterdam IFFR in the Bright Future section and is set in a ldquofacelessrdquo society the inspiration for which he says came to him nearly ten years ago while commuting in Singapore Shukla who was working as an animator back then was dissatisfied with the lack of creativity in his job and wanted to do something differentThe film was animated after capturing the motions of stage actors who acted the characters out step by stepldquoI started using my time in the subway to draw comics in my diaryrdquo he recalls ldquoI used to observe the faces of the peoplemdashvery glum very monotonousmdashand my own reflection in the window glued to the screen glumlyrdquo He realised that corporate life was just a large mass of faceless people without individuality travelling to and from from their workplaces day in and day out ldquoThat was humanity for merdquoThis suggestion of a human devoid of individuality spurred him to draw his own caricature on the page a person with a paperbag over his head concealing his features and thus his identity One character soon turned into a fullblown graphic novel which served as the basis for the film he would make in the future The name Schirkoa harks back to a comic he created when he was nine years old whose name he retained for nostalgiarsquos sakeIshan ShuklaShukla found the story of Schirkoa taking on a life of its own First he created a 14minute short animated film in 2016 by the same name which won 33 awards including the Best Animated Short award at the LA Shorts Festival the same year It was also longlisted for the Oscars That was a condensed version of the story which the new featurelength film seeks to complete The film is a collaborative effort between Red Cigarette Media Shuklas Vadodarabased animation studio Parisbased Dissidenz Films Germanybased Rapid Eye Movies Mumbai and Londonbased Civic Studios and French Sofica Cofinova 18In the world of the 103minute film there are only two societies which are polar opposites of each other Schirkoa is a supposedly perfect society where opinions donrsquot clash and everything is in harmonious agreementmdashat least on the surface The citizens go about with paperbags on their heads with cutouts for their eyes and nose thus avoiding confrontation and emotional connection The story is about rebellion and finding a way to voice onersquos doubts which to others may appear insaneldquoItrsquos not an Orwellian dystopia but more of a psychological dystopiardquo says Shukla whorsquos been interested in history since he was young ldquoThe dystopia is in your head Everything you say and do is monitoredrdquo In a way he says it reflects the world we live in any society in fact that uses oppression to silence dissent and originality By distilling the world of the film to this blackandwhite narrative he seeks to portray the shades of grey in situations of absolute freedom and absolute oppressionAnimating the film was particularly challenging because no faces were shown Thus the onus of expression lay on the treatment of objects movement of hands and body language Shukla worked with French stage actors and had them act out the play like a theatre production before animating it in 2D Eminent personalities voiced the charactersmdashKaran Johar the principal narrator in the role of the ldquoannouncerrdquo Shekhar Kapur Anurag Kashyap and auteur filmmaker Gasper Noe to name a fewmdashwho all brought their own personalities to the charactersFor the filmmaker whorsquos been drawing comics since he was six years old viewing the world through an ldquoabsurdist lensrdquo helps to craft compelling stories and narratives ldquoI never liked school It was a prison to me and I always wanted to escaperdquo he recalls ldquoI came up with this alterego who had wings and could fly away That character in a way translated into the protagonist of SchirkoardquoldquoYoursquoll always find people trying to find a way out of reality no matter how perfect it seemsrdquo he concludes ldquoItrsquos a reflection of humanity torn betweentwo oppositesrdquo