Faceoff

Title: Faceoff
Premiere: Toronto Premiere | Country: Canada | Year: 2018 | Runtime: 5
http://taalproductions.com/index.html

Faceoff starts by capturing the fine details of the instruments, the fibres and textures of the Tabla, Mridangam and Violin. One at a time we see hands playing and slowly moving to reveal the faces of the players. The beginning depicts a feeling of solitude, slightly dark and dramatic, musicians in their own space.

As the music starts to build up we see a few glimpses of a beautiful dancer, sitting almost like a statue clad in a bright crimson dress.
She slowly starts to move by making a few hand gestures, a ritual to prepare her dance.

Although we don’t see the players and dancers in the same space, there is a feeling they are aware of each other.
The dancer looks as if through a veil to see who is on the other side. The players are getting prepared for something.

As the music intensifies the dancer turns into their space where they begin to faceoff into a final crescendo.
The ending signifies the last final detail of the mudra (hand gesture) and brings back the close ups from the beginning of the film.
As in Indian classical music the ending also signifies the beginning of something new.

The look and surrounding of the film is kept minimalistic and stark, with the intention to bring out the beauty of the instruments and the art form itself.

Director Biography – Melissa Das-Arp

Melissa Das-Arp was born and raised in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and watched her father create storyboards, direct, produce and edit documentaries.
When she moved to Canada she became involved in North Indian music (tabla) and started producing promotional videos.
Now Melissa works mainly on creating storyboards, directing and producing videos for music and dance.