There are some romantic dates that end when the evening does. And then some stay with you long enough to become a film. For filmmaker Vimal Raj, A Date began with one such evening. While working at a software company, he met a girl from North India and asked her out. The date did not go as planned. They argued through much of it, but while dropping her home, he found himself unable to let her go. That unexpected connection stayed with him. They eventually got married, and years later, the experience became the inspiration for his feature debut.
The film brings a fictional version of that experience to Bengaluru, following Karthik and Monisha, played by Sujanith Shetty and Ashwini Shenoy. What begins as a one-day date gradually becomes an encounter neither expects.
“The title A Date is familiar to Gen Z and millennials. It can mean meeting someone, a night out with friends or simply spending time with a person you are interested in. But my film is specifically about a boy and girl meeting for a date. Their backgrounds and what they carry into that meeting make it different,” explains Vimal.
The film is also the result of Vimal’s eight years of making short films. He wrote, directed and edited his earlier projects, moving from three-minute films to 10-minute and 30-minute formats before taking the leap to a feature.
“I started with three minutes, then moved to 10 and 30 minutes. Each film helped me understand what it takes to make a feature. There comes a point when you want to go beyond short films,” he says.
An investor who had watched his English-language shorts initially asked him to develop a Kannada film. The idea was shelved after they felt it needed more work before being revived and eventually taking shape as A Date.
Vimal has also edited and directed the film, and has also scored music and background score alongside his friend Moksha Beats. With cinematography by Vadde Devender Reddy, A Date will be released by PVR INOX in Karnataka.
For Vimal, the film is a chance to turn a personal experience into a new beginning. “A day can change the course of a life. In the same way, a film can change the course of my career. I hope A Date will be that film,” he signs off.