An animated musical · 2023
Barsaat
Rain, memory, and the long art of letting go. A whole life passes through one monsoon-green valley, composed in 2016, released in 2023, painted by a family of thirty artists.
The film
Six minutes of rain. Fifty years of life.
One couple, one hillside, one lifetime, first meeting to final letting-go, told almost entirely through music. Set in a valley painted after Munnar, where the rain returns every year and the Neelakurinji blooms once in twelve.
Sung by Jimmy Francis John & Parvathy Manjunath · words by Gaurav Digga · music by Ashwin Syam · directed by Vipin Samuel.
Winner
Ram Mohan Viewer’s Choice Award
for Professional Short Film
Anifest India 2024, chosen by a captivated audience, the very people the film was made for.
Walk into the rain
A whole life, in six rains
Keep scrolling, the film walks with you. Every frame of Barsaat moves; a couple’s journey through all the ups and downs.
i / vi
The rain remembers.
An old man stands where a whole life happened.
The signature
Time turns in circles
There are no cuts in Barsaat. Fifty years pass through turning transitions, an old man’s eye becomes a bicycle wheel becomes a morning in his twenties. Scroll slowly, and turn this one yourself.
The visuals grow from two returning gifts of the valley, the rain, which comes back every year, and the Neelakurinji, which blooms once in twelve. Nature keeping time with a marriage.
why everything in the film is cyclical
Seven years of rain
It began as a melody
Before it was a film, Barsaat was a tune for a college assignment, and a grandson watching his grandfather learn to live on after his grandmother passed. These are the pages of how it grew.
Ashwin composes the tune and wants to picture it. The story arrives from home: his grandfather, learning to live on after his grandmother’s passing; after decades of companionship.
Lyricist Gaurav Digga writes the words and brings the canvas the story is painted on, rain. Vipin Samuel begins a screenplay, and a set of illustrated images grows into a short film.
Padmashree Satya sketches the couple; Neeti Sivakumar paints their world. A year of storyboards follows, drawn by three non-animators with a dream.
The pandemic. Personal savings, a production bottleneck, and a project that keeps everyone looking forward through the hardest years.
The animators of Totem Creative join, and the team grows to thirty artists across India, working remotely, frame by painted frame.
“When I first composed Barsaat in 2016, it stemmed from the idea of how beautiful must be the journey of an old couple having seen so many ups and downs in life… we tried to do justice to all the departments to serve that story. And thus Barsaat became more than just a song.”
Ashwin, on releasing the filmBarsaat is released, and travels to festivals in India, Greece and Portugal.
The Ram Mohan Viewer’s Choice Award for professional short film at Anifest India, and features in the press on how it was made.
The first rain
The same storm fell twice
Before the film you saw above, there was a first version, the director’s cut: looser lines, pencil showing under the paint, luminous and unguarded. Ashwin still keeps a soft spot for its art. Drag the raindrop to watch one storm become the other.
first rainfinal rain
first rainfinal rain
The director’s cut is the film’s first life, the drawing and animation experiments the story grew up inside. Watching the two together is watching a team learn to animate.
Pages from the first rain
The people of the rain
Barsaat took all of these people.
Thirty artists across India, seven years, one valley. Every name here carried the rain a little further.
Production
The music
The animation
Voices in the rain
What it did to people
Left under the film, word for word.
“Way to make me weep on a Wednesday night.”
@ohjudydit“Just beautiful in all the way… music, lyrics, story, animation everything 👏👏”
@christojohnson1938“Sooths the soul… the compositions and renditions are outstanding. Visually appealing too.”
@hemanair2949“Beautiful animation 🌹 it touches our hearts 🥰 well done 🌹”
@cjayalakshmi2194Write back to the rain
And what did it do to you?
If Barsaat left something with you, a memory it surfaced, someone it made you call, tell me. Every note arrives as a letter, and I read all of them.
Take the rain with you
Frames for your wall
Painted by the film’s artists. These six frames have already lived off-screen once, as a set of real, printed postcards.
the embrace
the ride
two colors
the puppy
morning tea
the valleyThese aren’t downloads, they’re prints. If you’d like the postcards on your wall, write to us.
Ask about the postcards
The rain lives on
The film ends. The song keeps falling.
Barsaat lives on as a single, streaming everywhere, with its own world on the Music page. And this room is built for more: future animated stories will live here beside it.