Lucky Red Seeds

CREDITS
Writer & Director	:	ANJALI MENON
Producers	:	NFDC (INDIA) LITTLE FILMS
Dialogues	:	PALIYATH APARNA MENON
Consultant	:	KAVALAM NARAYANA PANIKKAR, SREENIVASAN

SYNOPSIS

Lucky Red Seeds represent the memories seen through the young eyes of Vicky- one of the millions of Indian children raised outside their country. In the mid 1970s, 10-year-old Vicky arrives in Kerala, India to attend his grandfather’s funeral.

Vicky’s ancestral home is a beautiful cavernous house in a rural Kerala village. The disjointed big family has come together at the otherwise desolate home. The traditional funeral rites of sixteen days, lay the perfect ground to relive all their mutual quirks and past tensions.

In midst of the infighting, Vicky befriends the children. A pond full of fishes, the serpent cove, a funeral for tadpoles, mango-laden trees and the favorite red-seed collection keep them busy through the days.

The innocent beliefs of the children exist parallel to the cynical distrust of the adults. But story that evolves in the midst of this is about someone else - Roja- the servant girl who is neither child nor adult, neither insider nor outsider. With her, Vicky and the children journey through an experience that steals their innocence from them, replacing it with misplaced guilt.

Decades later Vicky returns to his ancestral home to tell us about those sixteen days that left indelible impressions on all their lives. His adult reflections are juxtaposed against the childhood visual narrative – bringing to life the magic of childhood and a past era.

Director’s Profile

Top honours graduate from London Film School (UK) in 2002, Anjali Menon has been working on fiction & non-fiction formats since 1997. Having worked on various projects in India, the Middle East and UK, Anjali Menon started Little Films in Mumbai in 2006.

With a background in Indian performing arts and visual media, Anjali Menon began her career with television. As a post-graduate in communication studies (specializing in TV production) from Pune, India, Anjali Menon worked on documentaries and program designing in India and the Middle East.

In 2000, Anjali Menon joined the London Film School, UK, where she specialized in Film Direction and was awarded overall distinction honors in editing, producing and directing film. In London she worked on several short films and documentaries that have won awards and traveled to festivals.