Looking back, it all seems worthwhile now.

It has been a wholesome journey for a boy from the Banjara community of Marathwada, trying to make a career in the film industry. And still, a long way to go!

Hello! Aditya Arvind Chavan here! Chalo, mai aapko apni kahani batata hu.

I’m from Kinwat Taluka, a small town in the Nanded District of Maharashtra. Humara gaon Nanded district se 150 km dur ek remote aur tribal town hai. So, it means a lot to come so far. All thanks to my supportive family members. My father is an advocate, and my mother is a hardworking Farmer and Homemaker. My grandparents were teachers. Initially, I had an interest in politics. But the interest switched towards film-making organically. While pursuing Engineering at MIT Pune, I realised I have a filmmaker inside me and should pursue film-making. So I switched to mass media to study film-making.

Whenever I used to watch movies, I felt fascinated and got lost in the cinematic world for days. And I, too, wanted to create that magical world of my own. In my teenage years, I watched every movie released in the theatre. Initially, I loved Vishal Bhardwaj and Anurag Kashyap’s films. Watching gangster movies thrilled me. ‘The Godfather’ is my favourite. Can you imagine I got the pirated DVD of The Godfather Trilogy from the local vendor of Kinwat? That was the first time I saw it, and I was moved by it. After shifting to Pune and especially while studying mass media, I got to explore more about the World of cinema and know more about various filmmakers worldwide.

I loved telling stories to friends. Horror stories sunake mehfil bithana was my favourite time pass. ‘Mai toh doston ko dekhe hue movies ki kahani sunate waqt intentionally apni twist add kar deta tha. Unka expression dhekne me maja aata tha.’ So, I guess film-making built organically in me while growing up.

I have made several short films. My previous short film, 'Kshay', travelled around 14 film festivals worldwide. It also won Honorable Mention at 'Cannes Shorts'. After Shifting to Mumbai, I worked as an associate director for the critically acclaimed Hindi feature film "Haemolymph". The process of making that film taught me a lot. I also used to work as a movie tagger but left it to focus full-time on writing and pitching my first feature film.

Recently, my short film, 'Uss Paar’, was released on Humara Movie. The film’s idea came during the COVID-19 lockdown. The treatment of this film is in "screen life" format, and I wanted to shoot this film with a phone camera to achieve realistic touch. Initially, I thought to pull the project in the ‘work from home’ model. Like all the artists, directors, and technicians will work from their homes, and we’ll shoot the movie online. But it didn’t work. So after the lockdown, we restarted the project again and shot the film. Unfortunately, Pragalbha, our lead actress, got injured during the shoot. Fortunately, it wasn’t anything serious, but we had to reschedule the shoot. Looking back, it all seems worthwhile now.

‘Uss Paar’ is an experimental Dark comedy film that also comments on today's sociopolitical environment. Do watch it on HumaraMovie’s YouTube channel. You’ll have a great time watching the dark satirical tale of the Negative Influence of the vagueness of the Internet's knowledge on Gen Z.

All this wouldn't have been possible without the support of my parents and grandparents. Wo jante hai ki mai dil se jo bhi karunga, acha hi karunga…

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