Making up (film short)

This is a ten minute sequence from my documentary in progress, "Chakyar." Teams of high school students, under the direction of maestro Painkulam Narayanan Chakyar, don make-up at the district level arts competition in Thrissur, Kerala on December 31, 2012. They are preparing to perform short one-act plays in the Sanskrit theatrical tradition of Kerala, kudiyattam. "Making up" shows the laborious process of applying kudiyattam make-up to dozens of amateur actors in a single day. The short explores themes of subjectivity and transformation: the person is slowly subsumed into the traditional role--god, demon, hero-- as each layer of make-up is applied.