A NEW NORMAL
Synopsis
‘A New Normal’ is a short film created using Augmented Reality that subverts the limitations of digital intimacy to create a story about warmth, hope, and family.
Credits
Anshul Kumar – “Key Cast”
Vijaya Lakshmi – “Key Cast”
Shaivalini Kumar – “Key Cast”
Director Statement
As we learn to keep social and familial connections alive amidst the pandemic and rely heavily on digital media, I realize this has been my own ‘normal’ for most of the past decade. After immigrating to the US from India, my ability to travel home and be physically present with my family became limited, particularly after the 2016 elections. Thinking about home and belonging today, my thoughts go to my sister in Copenhagen and my parents in New Delhi. Using Augmented Reality as a storytelling tool for this film allowed me to see the evolving definition of ‘home’ through the eyes of my family. Shot entirely in my apartment while sheltering in place, this film is a product of remote collaboration between artists based in Copenhagen, Madrid, New Delhi, Mumbai, and Los Angeles. In ‘A New Normal,’ my everyday digital conversations with my family are overlaid with AR versions of my parents and sister in my environment to co-create a mixed reality experience that, for the time being, is the closest thing I have to the feeling of home.
Director Biography
Asavari is a Filmmaker & Visual Artist from New Delhi, India, currently based in Los Angeles. She owns and operates the studio Supernova Design through which she creates commercial and personal projects while collaborating with POC and women artists. Select clients include – Warner Bros., Google, YouTube & Disney. Asavari’s award-winning films, new media work, and graphic narratives have been showcased at numerous festivals and exhibition spaces. Select showings include the Los Angeles Zine Fest, Ottawa International Animation Festival, St. Louis International Film Festival & the American Documentary and Animation Festival. Her projects have also been featured in Kyoorius Design Magazine, Cartoon Brew, STASH, and Animation Reporter Magazine. Drawn to cross-cultural narratives, Asavari uses character-driven storytelling to parse her evolving cultural and political identity. Through her body of work, she hopes to generate a discourse surrounding ideas of ‘home’ and ‘belonging’ and find where her own narratives intersect with those around her. Asavari holds a BFA in Animation Film Design from the National Institute of Design and an MFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts. She is a former artist in residence for Adobe Aero and is currently exploring how Augmented Reality can be a compelling medium for telling personal stories.
