Online friends come together to shoot a docu in Ireland and Kolkata

The global lockdown, which has seen a halt in all forms of work, has made most put on their thinking caps to keep themselves engaged. After her long career in research and teaching in India, Paromita Sengupta, who now stays in Ireland, and Abhishek Ganguli, who is an independent filmmaker from Kolkata, collaborated to make an experimental bilingual (English/Bengali) short documentary film, The Unknown Spring (Onnyo Ek Basanta).It was shot partly in Ireland and partly in Kolkata and edited by Paromita.
"The Unknown Spring was born from a wish to document our conversations about the sudden and unprecedented changes in world and world view following Covid-19 and the global lockdown. Since normal was replaced by the ‘new normal’, as we struggled to make sense of a Covidean world, if I may so call it, as humanity stood humbled by an invisible but ubiquitous virus, we realised that this novel experience must be captured through our lenses and its feelings recorded in a film," said Paromita, who now enjoys filmmaking after a course in Ireland.
The collaborators met over Facebook and their creative minds thought of utilising the lockdown period to capture some of the many perspective towards the global crisis. "The film, shot during lockdown, was captured without any professional shooting set up or crew and is being created under a zero budget model. I used to shoot the early morning Kolkata with an adventure camera and DSLR. People working for our everyday needs like the bread man, sweepers, newspaper boys are also an essential part of the docu," said Abhishek, who now looks forward to come together with Paromita and co-create many more experimental ventures, exploring new creative vistas.
Shot with minimal filming gear and zero technical crew, the film also features seven-year-old twins and awaits a June release.