‘SHANKARI’ is the story of a genius girl born into an impoverished family. Like any girl of her age, she yearns to go to school. Her mother, who works as a house help cannot afford her education and has pulled her out of school some years ago. Shankari now helps her mother who works as a servant maid. Everyday is the same for her… Dull and monotonous punctuated by memories of her long lost school life. Every day is just the same… But one day turns out to be eventful. But does that change her destiny?

Duration	11:54
Language	Kannada
Location	Bangalore

Directed by Abhijith Yelandur Ramesh 
I completed by B.E. in Information Science from UVCE, Bangalore in 2005. It was only much later that I realized my passion lay in cinema. I had always felt a serious inclination to story telling. Any genre of story telling interested me. I chose cinema, for it appeared to be the most fascinating of all the story telling techniques. My repertoire of work isn’t much. I worked as an assistant to documentary filmmaker Pavitra Chalam on one small project. "Shankari" came immediately after that. It was my voluntary contribution to Vibha, an NGO that promotes education as a means of empowerment. A tiny idea that materialized in my mind formed the basis for the short film. As opposed to the regular documentary techniques of creating awareness, I chose to tell a story first and then drive the message through. Shankari was the outcome of this small experiment. It remains my only work as a director. Right now, I am penning the script for a full length feature and hope to make a film soon.

Cast	Sudeepta - Shankari Shubhang - Shubhang Harish - Harish
Produced by	Abhijith Yelandur Ramesh
Script/Story	Abhijith Yelandur Ramesh
Cinematography	R.Phaninder Kumar
Edited by	Pradeep Nayak
Music	Chinmay Athaley
Voice over/Narrated by	Avinash

Interesting Facts while filming
There was no script when we started shooting. I had a vague idea about how the film ‘might’ look when completed. The dialogues b/w Harish and Shubhang was created during shooting.
Sudeepta, my niece who played Shankari is a rather fashion conscious girl. She refused to wear the dull and worn out clothes we gave her. It took all of us a great deal of effort to get her into the costume. In the end, she refused point blank to remove her hair band! 
The puzzle we used in the film became quite a rage with the cast and crew. They would take turns playing with it and it contributed significantly to the delays we experienced while filming.
We had a whole episode of Shankari and her mother shot during filming. But unfortunately, due to technical reasons, we had to edit them out. Anything worth Sharing about the movie
Shankari was made as a voluntary contribution to VIBHA, an NGO based in the US that is changing the lives of many children in India. My friend, who is a volunteer there, asked me if I could make a docu film for them. I knew nothing of cinema, theoretical or practical. All I knew was that a film is composed of scenes and every scene is composed of shots. With this basic rule, I set out to make the short film. But I had an amazing crew who helped me. Instead of taking over, they would listen to me whatever I said, be it anything worthwhile or absolute nonsense, and then come up with a plan to execute.
Special thanks to Phaninder, my cameraman, who was such a wonderful and patient listener and Chinmay Athaley, who composed music for no money and at such short notice.