DIRECTOR STATEMENT

Only in the process of making this film, I realised how deeply personal it is, an ode to the complex nature of motherhood; I wanted to tell the stories of the women I grew up around. As the title reads, Love Death and Everything In Between, it tells a story of more than just a grieving couple, exploring their failing marriage through a cataclysmic event. It is personal, auto-ethnographic in a sense, inspired by real life but not autobiographical. That is where the language of fiction guided me in telling this story. I wanted to explore the multifaceted nature of people when they're grieving and represent them authentically. The characters in the film are South Asian and I didn't want to typecast them in a specific way that diasporic communities have been in mainstream cinema in the past. I wanted to show them as humans, with a nuanced identity of their own while exploring the minority experience in the UK.

Inspired by cinematic language of modern auteurs David Lowery's Ghost Story and Lee Chang Dong Burning and Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, this film is the cast and crew's cumulative efforts of contributing to existing independent films and filmmaking.

I was grateful to be a part of an amazing team who guided me in every step of the process and made this film possible given we were filming during covid following all the rules and restrictions. It is creatively fulfilling when you are able to tell the story how you intended to, in an attempt to find your voice. This film wouldn't have been possible without support from my tutors at University of the Arts London who helped in attaining this structure in whatever ways possible.

Mira and Pradeep are grieving their son’s untimely death while navigating the ups and downs in their relationship. During their visit to collect his belongings from London, they experience his life vicariously; Mira meets Aubrey, his lover and bonds with her over their mutual longing for him. The trio realises though they cannot overcome their grief, they can start to build their lives around it.

Meet the director: Soham Kundu

Soham is a writer/director of Indian heritage who moved to pursue his MA in Film from University of the Arts London on a post-graduate scholarship. He is a storyteller with 10+ directing credits on independent shorts, who wants to represent characters on the margins of society and tell their stories with empathy and portray authentic human experiences on screen. Previously his hyper-real short film AALO-the light, where his mother and sister play a version of themselves, has screened and won awards across various film festivals including the Dadasaheb Phalke International Film Festival. His films are at times, auto-ethnographic, studying oneself around the society and culture, delving into personal histories and unconventional human connections and translating the personal into cinematic.

His first short film made during his bachelors years "Lost In Transition" was screened on National Television and is currently on Disney Plus - India. His other short films "Stay Maybe" about an Asian film crew navigating the film laws in the UK, was screened at INDIs Festival, Leeds in the young filmmakers' section and "Don't be a Chicken" about performative masculinity and modern love, which is also in the festival circuit.

He has collaborated with various artists across India and Europe to create immersive film works that have screened across the globe.