The Linger : Shamurailatpam Bishwajit's Film in the International Film Festival

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Shamurailatpam Bishwajit Sharma's (aka Shamtom Shar) debut film 'The Linger', a 10 minutes short film (narrative) has been officially selected for the 4th Delhi International Film Festival which will be held from 5-10 December, 2015.

'The Linger' is about a man haunted in his dreams by a memory of his past. The film basically depicts the nature of dreams and its relation to human subconscious minds.

Bishwajit Sharma s/o Ph. Brajamuhini Devi, popularly known as Shamtom Shar hails from Bishnupur Mamang Leikai, Manipur. He studied English Literature at University of Delhi. After having assisted O. Goutam in a few Manipuri digital films, he studied film editing at Digital Film Academy, Mumbai.

He also attended various national and international film workshops like Documentary Project Development by DocEdge, Kolkata (Asian Forum for Documentary), Screenwriting Master class by Jame V. Hart (Screenwiter of Dracula, August Rush, etc.), Advanced Screenwriting by Alexandra Viets (USA), Acting workshop by Seema Biswas (Renowned Bollywood actress), Filmmaking workshop by International Film Workshops, Yellow Submarine Film Pvt. Ltd, etc. to name a few.

Other than sending and winning at festivals, the filmmaker wishes to make good films for the mass. On filmmaking in Manipur, he says, ' There is hardly any good narrative (fiction) film in Manipur these days. People want to make money fast and they produce anything and everything. The quality is very substandard. There were times people got adjusted to it but now it has got so worse that nobody wants to see Manipuri digital films anymore. This is something I want to change. I want to feed people good quality films.I hope to see some producers emerge who know films and filmmaking and don't see just easy money'.

His film wasn't selected at Manipur Short Film Festival, 2015. His take on it:

'First of all, it was a very good initiative by the Cine Director's Guild, Manipur to have organized the festival. My film shouldn't necessarily be selected as different festivals have different mottos and tastes. But that's not the case here.

The selection of films were not done by film experts or critics. It's the most silly thing to be expected from a film festival. No film festival in the world does that. It was very wrong of me to have submitted there. If they want a quality festival, they should rectify it'.