Creative Projects
When I moved to the United States in 2021––at the peak of a global pandemic––filmmaking became my cathartic vessel to channel the intense loneliness, shock, and despair that accompanied my displacement.
Over the years, camera became my playful companion to explore the concepts and theories I encountered in my research. Video essays, poetic essay films, video diaries are some of the forms I have used to explore the dialectic of Self/Other.
I am currently working on an experimental essay film that excavates a wedding film from the family archive to reflect on memory and culture. The film is both a commentary on wedding film practices in Kerala and mother-daughter relationship in a patriarchal society.
Select Filmography
A still from Unknown (2023). Unknown is an experimental film that explicitly deals with the topic of gun violence in the U.S., mediated via the snippets of a friendly conversation between a newly immigrated international graduate student (The Grad Student) and the filmmaker. However, the film is not interested in the heated debates over possession of guns and instead, it lays bare the deep-seated human conditions of alienation, anxiety, fear, and vulnerability resulting from the threat to existence in a new social, cultural, and political environment. Through a highly contrasted, desaturated color palette and ominous soundtrack, the film slowly brings the primal fear of death to life.
A still from Methodology of Clouds (2021). The film is an experiment with B-roll aesthetics. Time-lapse of clouds, captured over weeks, shows passage of time.
A still from Senses (2021). Senses is a poetic essay film that documents the culture shock and displacement felt by the recently immigrated filmmaker.
A still from Self: Multitudes in Dissonance (2023) is an offering of my mind, as it barely holds together dreams, desires, and responsibilities amidst alienation in a strange land. After moving to the U.S. from India in 2021, my unified idea of self blew up into smithereens. Before I knew it, I was floating in a limbo in fluid identities and fractured connections, all glued up together in disharmony. The experimental film plays with the dominant conventions of visuals and sounds to engage with the idea of existing in dissonance.
Popcult Media
In 2019, I co-founded PopCult Media in Kerala, India with Charles Andrews and Ashiq Bawa. As a new media startup, PopCult challenged social norms and taboos around gender and sexuality through visual art projects. One of our projects, PopCult Dictionary, that redefined derogatory words commonly used in Malayalam social media space, was covered by national media as well as cited in academic scholarship. We also produced funny and quirky videos on films, pop culture, and other topics that mattered most to Malayali youth.
Select newspaper articles on my contributions to PopCult Media:
- Meet the IIT-ian Redefining Malayalam Pop Culture On Social Media, Yahoo News, Dec 2020.
- Taking Malayalam to the masses: How Arya Prakash is popularising Malayalam pop culture through memes and posts, The New Indian Express EdEx Live, Sep 2020.
If you wish to watch any of my films, please send a message and I will respond with the link:
Arya Rani/ആര്യ റാണി 