18th british shorts, berlin
Soham Kundu
farewell

FESTIVAL SCREENING
Sat 25.1. 21:00 / Acudkino 1
CAST
Samir Mahat
Vishnu Krishnan
JAN, 23, 2025
Two friends: one with a broken heart, the other on the brink of marriage. Together they set out on a day's journey that leads them to confront their past amidst shared grief and hopes for a brighter future.
Hi Soham, how does it feel to be at the 18th British Shorts, Berlin, with your latest short film, Farewell?
It feels great to be screening our film at the 18th British Shorts, Berlin. Berlin has always been a very inspiring city, and I was there in October last year where I had an amazing time. I just love this city – it’s so free-spirited, so it really feels great to have our film selected by the British Shorts programming team. Plus, it's our first time at the festival. We hope to have a really amazing time and show our film to Berlin audiences.
Farewell has had an amazing festival run, and congratulations on your films nomination for the British Society of Cinematographers: Short Film Award. What has it meant to you and your team to get this type of recognition?
The recognition from the British Society of Cinematographers is a super great deal, especially for a film like ours, which was made on a very minuscule budget and totally because of my collaborators who put so much time and effort and managed to dedicate everything to the film. I’m super happy for my DP, who is an Asian woman. We had never thought while making the film that we would be nominated. It's really great to have this kind of recognition in her name from such an esteemed institution because we really look up to the cinematographers who are at the helm of BSC. So when we got the news of our nomination, we were almost not able to believe it, and we had to pinch ourselves out of it to really reckon with the fact that we were one of the five films that were nominated in that category. So yeah, shout out to BSC for giving this space to our film.
How important are festivals like British Shorts, Berlin, in creating a platform for short films and filmmakers?
We filmmakers are always making films in our own bubble, so once we start showing the films, festivals become like a bridge between us and the audience. Especially at such an early stage in our careers, it's really great to have festivals like British Shorts champion our voices. Also, at safe spaces like these, we are able to meet fellow filmmakers who are in the same grind as we are, and that space becomes super sacred to really share our experiences and bounce off each other's energies. Making films is a really lonely process, so I think festivals become that space where filmmakers and audiences can come together and celebrate filmmaking and cinema.
Short films are a vital medium in the film industry, yet there are few opportunities for the public, outside of festivals, to see them. What more can be done to make short films more visible and accessible to the wider cinema audiences?
I wish I had an answer to that because I've been trying to crack that model for years. I feel like the whole medium of short films needs to be made more accessible for filmmakers and audiences alike – from institutions that have the support system to back filmmakers from a very early development stage until the postproduction and exhibition of those films. Nowadays, with so many films in general, we are always going by the metrics to see what is going to feed the machine and not one's personal creativity or expression. So I don't feel people invest in careers anymore the way it used to be back then (I think, and I might be wrong). I feel that kind of mechanism to support and champion filmmakers needs to be there, and people or institutions who have the mechanism should step forward to support us filmmakers through that process because all short filmmakers do want to transition into long-term projects at some point, and shorts are like a step into that.
Can you tell me how Farewell came about? What was the inspiration behind your screenplay?
I've had such distance from the film, as it has been a while since the seed of the idea came, that I’ve almost forgotten why I started it. But I think there was one time when a friend and I had a conversation during a long train journey where we were discussing the weight of expectations placed on men of colour by society. The conversation jumped to what really defines ‘being a man,’ and from there, the writing process started. It took a really long time because I was also learning how to write and figuring out what I wanted to convey through the medium of cinema. Then my co-producer Vishnu, who is also part of the cast, came in, and we refined the idea. We were keen on exploring this story through the lens of friendship and two people who’ve had different life experiences and are in different phases of their lives. The distinction that one person was from the UK and the other migrated to the UK was also important.
That was the general idea, and I built it from there, but at every step, we tried to ground the story within their interactions. Then my cast and everyone else came on board, and together we kept reworking the scrip until we started filming. My filmmaking is extremely collaborative from the beginning, so I would say even at the script stage, I'm always bouncing off ideas with my collaborators.
What were the biggest challenges you faced making Farewell, and what was the message you wanted to convey with this film?
Right off the start, making this film was a challenge because I had an idea and a script but no money to make it really. So then I thought the best way would be to work over the summers, and I ended up taking a lot of freelance gigs and saved up some money. Then my co-producer Vishnu (whom I met through The Kusp) came on board, and together we funded the film through production, doing it step-by-step. I was jumping between being the writer, director, and producer quite often. Once the writing process was done, I totally took on the directing hat and was trying to put the film together.
It was a challenge from the beginning to really find the locations, and even the actor who would play Afan—Samir Mahat—came in just one week before the shoot. Our equipment got confirmed just a couple of days before from Cameraworks (who gave us a massive discount), and even our location, The Barrack Fields, which belonged to the Ministry of Defence, luckily got confirmed two days before the shoot — thanks to the good people at the Garrison Church who helped us secure the permission. My producers, Aadi and Vishnu, and our production manager Animesh and all our friends really made the process as simple as possible.

As a writer/director how close did you stick to your screenplay once you started shooting, or do you give yourself and your cast flexibility with the text?
As I said, my work is super collaborative. I really work with the actors in a way so that they feel comfortable with saying the lines that they feel the character should be saying; hence the screenplay only becomes a blueprint for the production. If the actors feel they should stick with the lines in the screenplay, they are free to; otherwise, we are open to improvisation. I always try to make films in a way that we schedule some time for improvised scenes within the shooting schedule because I feel that's super important for my process—to really jump out of the screenplay and, in the heat of the moment, see what the film really has to offer.
I feel like what we get from what is not in the script is really special. We did have some improvised scenes in Farewell that made it to the final cut—towards the end before the last scene, where the characters are by the statue and by the river. Those are totally improvised scenes where we were holding the camera, just moving around the space in Woolwich. My DP was super pissed, but I really enjoyed filming that.
How much did you previous films, Love, Death, and Everything In Between, prepare you for writing and directing Farewell?
Love, Death, and Everything In Between was my graduation film at UAL, and it was the very first time I was working with such a big crew and so many stakeholders, as well as within the university ecosystem. Farewell was, in a way, a departure from that, I would say.
Love, Death taught me a lot in terms of familiarity with the process of making a film, and I was more comfortable taking on the challenge of making another short based off of that experience. We recently finished another short, The Haze, which we shot in Kolkata, India, with a lot of my collaborators who were part of Farewell being part of this as well. So definitely, I would say Love, Death was a very important film in my journey. It was a great teacher (who you don’t like but teaches you some hard lessons) for my process of making films—be it writing a script, working with collaborators, raising money, or navigating film festivals. It’s all because of that one film that I learned so much.
Was there any one scene that was particularly tricky for you to shoot?
The pub scene. It was a very emotionally heavy-handed scene, and we started the film shoot with that scene. So, never in the future will I ever start a shoot with a heavy-handed scene because everyone is really just getting familiar with the on-set environment, and it’s best to start with a low-frequency scene and take on the heavy ones as the days progress.
How essential is the creative collaboration between you and your team when making a film like Farewell?
It’s everything—from start to finish. The entire process depends on the creative collaboration I share with the HODs—my producers, DOP, editor, production designer, music composers, and sound designer being the key departments. Since we didn’t have a huge budget, everyone worked on the film for free. The crew members were either friends or friends of friends, which is really important for my process. I need people who are passionate about the project and cinema, willing to give their all to the film.
For example, my editor and I worked nights from 7 PM to 4 AM after our day jobs to finish the film before going to our day jobs again. My DP and I rigorously scouted locations for a month before the shoot to finalise the look of the film. These collaborations are not just logistical; they’re at the heart of the storytelling.
Where did your passion for filmmaking come from?
From my mother. She was an actor before marriage, though she didn’t continue acting afterward. But she stayed connected to the world of cinema, taking us to movie theatres religiously once a week—and sometimes, if we were lucky, even twice. That’s where it all began.

"The films I’ve written and those I’m currently writing are rooted in the social milieu of Calcutta, where I grew up."
How much has your approach to your films changed since your debut?
The process of making a film has become much more significant to me since Love, Death, and Everything in Between. I now give my all to the journey of seeing a film come alive—from the idea stage to its final exhibition and finding its audience. When I made Love, Death, I didn’t fully understand that finishing post-production is only 50% of the work. The remaining 50% is getting the film in front of an audience. That lesson shifted my perspective. Now, I approach filmmaking step by step, working on multiple projects at different stages simultaneously. This allows me to live with several stories and jump in and out of them as needed.
In such a polarising world, storytelling and cinema feel like a canvas to ground and articulate experiences. As Richard Linklater says, cinema is an extension of life—I’m trying to approach filmmaking in a similar way.
What do you think you discovered about yourself as a filmmaker during the making of this film?
That I prefer fewer shots to convey a scene and even fewer cuts in the edit. Also, I love soundtracks.
Moving forward, what themes and subjects are you looking to explore?
The films I’ve written and those I’m currently writing are rooted in the social milieu of Calcutta, where I grew up. This space deeply reflects my experiences, the people, and the places that have shaped who I am as a person and a filmmaker. Naturally, my stories are set here. I’m also keen on exploring films with different tonalities to keep the medium fresh and exciting for myself. I admire filmmakers like Luca Guadagnino, no two films of his feel the same.
As for themes, I can’t pin them down exactly, but right now they seem to revolving around dysfunctionality, family, and finding individuality within a familial context.
Who are some of the filmmakers that have inspired you?
There are countless, but early on, I was drawn to American independent filmmakers like the Duplass Brothers. Lars von Trier’s films also inspired me, mainly because I didn’t always understand them, which made me revisit them and reflect on why they affected me so deeply.
I love Toni Erdmann, which ranks high on my all-time list. Recently, Aftersun was a deeply moving experience, and Hirokazu Koreeda’s Monster was fantastic. One of the first films that truly left me in awe was Hiroshima Mon Amour, which I watched during my college days in Manipal..
Is there any advice you wish you had been given when you started your filmmaking journey?
That this is going to be a really long, long journey—so stick with it.
And finally, what message would you want your audiences to take away from Farewell?
As long as the film makes someone think beyond it or reflect on it after watching, I feel the filmmaker has achieved something. I hope Farewell provides audiences with an experience crafted with a lot of love and make it their own film.
As long as the film makes someone think beyond itself or reflect on it after watching, I feel the filmmaker has achieved something. I hope Farewell provides audiences with an experience crafted with a lot of love.