Cannes-return Alpha Beta Gamma director on experimenting with what he calls ‘relationship story of year’

The setting is that of the first phase of the COVID-19 lockdown when no one in the world knew how serious the virus outbreak was and what it meant.

Alpha Beta Gamma director Shankar Srikumar spoke to WION about making a slice-of-life film that tells an extraordinary story of three ordinary people. Starring Reena Aggarwal, Nishan Naniah and Amit Kumar Vasisht in leading roles, Alpha Beta Gamma tries to make sense of a story that risks being called boring.

Here are the edited excerpts from our chat:

WION: Alpha Beta Gamma comes across as a simple story. As a filmmaker, is it more difficult to tell basic stories because they can often be labelled as boring and run-of-the-mill?

Answer: It probably is. With such a theme, the writer and director’s challenge is to depict even the most commonplace situations in a new way. But fortunately, human relationships are complex, and no two people or relationships are exactly alike. Just as every human being is unique, so is every relationship. So, when it is a love triangle, the storyteller has a lot of scope to play with the possibilities, about how a person will react in a particular situation. There is never a moment when things are just black or white when it comes to interpersonal relationships, especially ones where a lot of emotions are involved.

 

Alpha Beta Gamma: Plot and its Characters

WION: How do your characters in the film navigate this difficult journey? How do the actors juggle these emotions and translate them on screen?

Answer: How the characters of Alpha Beta Gamma navigate this complex journey of love and life, is what the story, the movie is about. How each character has their goal, their strengths and weaknesses, how they use those, how they get into difficult situations, and how they emerge from those situations as winners or losers. And is there really a winner? That is what the movie is about. As for the three main leads, Reena Amit and Nishan, they’re just great actors. They’ve lived the roles, I’d say.

WION: What’s something you love about your film?

A. What I love most about my film is that I think I have been able to maintain a light touch – you know, not overdoing anything. I mean, this is how people are. They are not sad all the time, or happy always, they fight and makeup and they fight again. And when something gets shattered they pick up the pieces and everybody moves on. My characters do, at least. I think audiences will be able to relate to that, that you have to make a choice and life goes on. So, shed a few tears, sing a song, dance a little jig, and go on living.

Watch the trailer of Alpha Beta Gamma here:

WION: The name, Alpha Beta Gamma, what does it mean in the context of your film?

Answer: Oh well, that’s the advantage of having studied science – that you are able to link biology and chemistry of life to physics. As the trailer reveals, the three principal characters are like these particles, an Alpha, a Beta, and a Gamma particle and the situation they are in, is the nuclear reactor. So naturally, there is going to be a reaction or an explosion. Life’s like that too, isn’t it?

Aplha Beta Gamma at Cannes, Berlinale

WION: Alpha Beta Gamma has had quite a run at film festivals, from Cannes, Berlinale to IFFI to name a few. What was that experience like?

Answer: Frankly, when we made Alpha Beta Gamma, none of us expected such a journey. All that we wanted was to make this film somehow and put it out there, maybe on OTT since the pandemic was raging at that time. So it was really difficult to have too many goals at that time. And that is why we put everything we had into it – our talents, skills, money, everything we had. So when IFFI happened, then Berlin and Cannes, we were in seventh heaven.

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WION: Your film’s theatrical release coincided with International Women’s Day. Was that date purposely chosen?

Answer: My idea as a writer-director was not to send out any message to anyone. Any creator for that matter, be it a writer, painter, singer, or director, I suppose all they want is to have people experience their creation and react. But then if you look at the film, it really is about a woman and the choice that she has to make. My character Mitali, her world is a microcosm, where she is caught between two men who are vying for her affection and she has to make a choice.

Produced under the banner of Chotee Film Productions’ & ‘Knownsense Entertainment, Alpha Beta Gamma is presented by 70mm Talkies, Samant Chauhan and Agastya Jain. Mona Shankar, Menka Sharma, Jithin Raj and Thomas Punnoose have produced the film.