The News Minute | November 5, 2014 | 05:25 pm IST
When Navin Kumar released his short film Chalk on YouTube on November 14 last year, little did he know that his film would gain popularity over a year later, thanks to Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher, who recently shared a link to Kumar's movie.
He Took Some Chalk, But When We Saw What He Drew It Destroyed Us via @aplusapp http://t.co/FrlnB0CWvT
— ashton kutcher (@aplusk) November 2, 2014The film has a duration of slightly over two minutes and revolves around the theme of adoption. Kumar, a professional in Bengaluru, said, "While making the film, we had kept the Indian audience in mind. But surprisingly after we released the video on Children's day last year, most of the views we got were from other countries, especially from the US, Poland and France", he added.
Kumar also said that since Kutcher tweeted the link, the views for the video have surged from around 4.5 million views to around 6.3 million in just two days. And at present the viewers are mostly from India and the video is circulating on several social media websites.
A silent movie, Chalk does not use words and maybe this is one reason it can be easily understood by anyone.
( Navin Kumar; Image courtesy: Navin Kumar Facebook Page )
One of the most striking moments in Chalk was inspired by a real life photograph- of a little boy who draws his mother on the floor and sleeps on top of it. Kumar, though not sure of the exact origin of the photograph, says it could be from a local publication in Iran.
In January 2014, the film had seen a sudden surge in the views after a Telugu movie 1: Nenokkadine, starring Mahesh Babu and Kriti Sanon, was released. "Nenokkadine had a similar scene. I think that is why people shared it at that time", said Kumar.
The makers of the film did try to publicise the film once during its release, but around the same time Sachin Tendulkar announced his retirement and all those plans were put on hold, stated Kumar.
Kumar, who feels his current job is just a temporary stop for him, is brimming with ideas for scripts and wants to make it big as a film maker some day.