BHOPAL: Chai addas have often been the places of discussion of ideas and future plans. In one such chai ka adda Abhinay Soni, Minhaj Abdullah, Akash Shrivastav, Devesh Gautam and Kuldeep Saratkar got the idea of making short films.
They started with making short films on social issues and released a movie every Friday on Youtube and launched their production house ‘Chai Stories’. After receiving a good response on YouTube, they started with web series and short films on different genres apart from social issues. Abhinay Soni, founder member of Chai Stories, said, “After we released short films of just social issues every Friday, we were asked by many people to make films on other genres as well like romance, horror, etc.
The aspiring team of short film makers, script writers, music directors, directors of photography, actors and actresses contribute their earning from freelance work they do and make short films which gather great response not just on YouTube but also at various national and international film festivals and competitions.
They have won the Best Motion Graphic film at Mumbai International Film festival for their short film ‘Why Me’. There short film ‘3AM’ was screened at Cinephone International Short Film Festival in Barcelona, Spain. Their films were also selected at Cinibees Awards, Chennai, FICCI Frames, Asia Pacific Awards, Germany and Chai Stories was selected in Manthan Award 2015 in the e-entertainment section from South Asia and Asia Pacific region. They are also rocking on nexGTV, with their web series ‘18+ Job Seekers’.
Abhinay said every member on the group was a freelance artist who contributed for Chai Stories. Some of the members like Pratik, Anmol, Urvashi, Shivam worked permanently with Chai Stories. “We have about 40 members working with us and they all are freelancers.
We contribute what we earn from our freelance work for production of the short films and videos,” said Abhinay. Till now, they have made over 150 short films and have received over a million views on their channel. They are now coming up with their second season of short films, Chai Stories Version 2, where they will be releasing short films every Friday from May 5.
