Amos TG on winning the Best Director award at the Kerala State Television Awards for his short film ‘Opponent’

A fewer years ago, erstwhile filmmaker and cinematographer Amos TG was travelling crossed Arunachal Pradesh, helium heard astir a boxing lucifer successful the State which ended successful the decease of 1 of the fighters. The demise of his rival had a heavy intelligence interaction connected the boxer, arsenic helium tried getting backmost into the arena. Simultaneously, helium struck up a relationship with idiosyncratic online. What happened adjacent inspired Amos to marque Opponent, which won awards for Best Director, Best Editor, Best Music Director and Best Second Actor astatine the 33rd Kerala State Television Awards announced recently.

“Once I heard the story, I tried to fig retired however to acceptable the communicative successful Kerala. We decided to acceptable the movie successful Kerala and Tamil Nadu,” says Amos, who is based retired of Palakkad.

Opponent is simply a intelligence play that explores the thought of nonaccomplishment successful sports, its ethics, and the intelligence toll it takes connected athletes successful the lawsuit of an unfortunate incident. In the 27-minute abbreviated film, the protagonist, Faiz, played by Kishore Roshik, is reeling from a boxing lucifer that ended with him accidentally sidesplitting his opponent. He is guilt-ridden, incapable to retrieve aft the bout.

The movie premiered astatine iNiM: India International Short Movie Fest 2024 successful the UAE.

Editing remains 1 of the film’s positives with Fazil Rasak, manager of the critically-acclaimed movie Thadavu, astatine the helm. Amos worked arsenic an subordinate cinematographer successful Thadavu. “One of the assemblage members had contacted us. She complimented america for keeping the communicative brief. Our exertion played a immense relation successful that. We changeable other footage conscionable successful lawsuit we needed it. The archetypal chopped of the movie was astir 34 minutes.”

The manager says helium has learnt absorption and cinematography moving with Fazil and Mridul S, the film’s cinematographer. “They some learned filmmaking making abbreviated films successful assemblage and applying to movie festivals. They marque a beardown squad and person helped maine execute the award,” says Amos, who has worked connected astir 35 abbreviated films, immoderate of which person not been released.

The actors successful the abbreviated movie person besides won accolades, with Kishore winning the Best Actor grant astatine the LK International Film Festival and the FETE International Short Film Festival, and Amritha Krishnakumar winning a peculiar assemblage notation for her show arsenic Faiz’s sister astatine the iNiM: India International Short Movie Fest. “Everyone successful the squad has won astatine slightest 1 grant crossed movie festivals, which is an encouragement for america to determination forward.”

“For Faiz, we wanted idiosyncratic with a inheritance successful martial arts. We decided connected Kishore since helium is trained successful Kalaripayattu and had the flexibility to execute arsenic a boxer,” says Amos. The histrion trained for 3 weeks with Nowfar Khan, enactment choreographer of Daveed (2025), a Malayalam movie acceptable against the backdrop of boxing, starring Antony Varghese.

Amos says 1 of the biggest challenges with Opponent was shooting the boxing sequence. “For the remainder of the scenes, we felt similar we were successful control. For the fight, we had planned to person a assemblage successful the contention hall. However, we could not prosecute anyone owed to budgetary constraints. People who were expected to travel didn’t amusement up either. That’s erstwhile we decided to sprout it with a dilatory shutter speed, which gave it a hazy feel,” says Amos, reflecting connected capturing the astir important country successful the film.

The combat sequence, which appears somewhat blurry, mirrors the characters’ carnal authorities aft engaging successful a rigorous round. “After the movie was released, everyone has been lauding that decision.”

Apart from moving arsenic an subordinate to cinematographer Mridul, Amos is getting acceptable for his diagnostic movie directorial debut. “I judge my enactment with Opponent is done, and I request to determination forward. It’s clip for radical to ticker it and stock their input. Some radical person enjoyed the film, portion a fewer others person besides pointed retired a fewer mistakes. I judge both,” says Amos.

Opponent is streaming connected Bhavana Studios’ YouTube channel