Chennai

The versatile Maya S Krishnan is delighted with the responses to her recently-released short film Maya: Unleashed.

This little-over-four-minute video is the first women-centric action short film. “I am overwhelmed that the who’s who of film industries have been calling me and have lauded the film. This idea hit the director of the project Yannick Ben on the sets of Dhruva Natchathiram, a couple of years ago.

He watched me perform a few stunt sequences on the film’s sets and enquired about my background and later discussed the project with me. Since then, I was excited about it and it ended up becoming my dream project too,” she begins.

The short film revolves around combat techniques and women’s safety. “But there is more to it,” she tells us. “Having world-renowned stunt choreographers, India must produce full-fledged female-centric action flicks regularly. With Maya: Unleashed, I hope we overcame the jinx.

Yannick Ben has made a Vietnamese film in the same genre previously. So, we knew what we wanted the conclusion to be like and the team worked with the same view. Director Gautham Menon was the guiding light for us,” she adds.

Shooting for the short film was the most interesting part, according to Maya. Reminiscing about her on-location incidents, the actress says, “We shot the film in Paris for three days in March this year. The script demanded it. I was on intense training for a couple of months prior to the shoot and landed in Charles De Gaulle airport (Paris) with a back spasm. It was the peak of winter and I was wearing a short dress. I went numb and my face almost paralysed. Moreover, I had to fight barefoot. There were a few injuries I sustained but the effort was worth it. We packed up early on the first day and completed it in the next couple of days. I reached Chennai before the lockdown.”

Maya says it was initially planned as a feature film.“We wanted to get the attention of a few producers by making the pilot film and prove to them that we could make such films of high quality in terms of content and technique.

Now, we have a few producers who are interested in investing in a similar feature film. When I started off my journey from Madurai, I wanted to do three things — play the lead in an action film, do a full-fledged comedy like Michael Madana Kamarajan and a romantic entertainer. I hope to strike off the to-do-list in the future,” she concludes.