Arun.Varghese

Between Us

Thank you, Joel & Rachel, for taking the time to watch our film and for giving such detailed feedback. We genuinely appreciate the positive comments about the cinematography, lighting, performances, editing and the creative risk we took with the story.

We would, however, like to respectfully challenge one part of the feedback — the idea that because Between Us was assigned the Family genre, the story should ultimately have been resolved with the characters together and given a happy ending.

Family stories are not necessarily happy stories. Family is a genre that can explore love, separation, loss, sacrifice, grief, conflict and even tragedy. Some of the most powerful family stories leave audiences emotionally unsettled rather than giving them a conventional happy resolution. If a particular type of positive or happy ending was expected from the genre, we feel that expectation should be clearly communicated as part of the genre criteria rather than assumed.

We also feel that the film was deliberately constructed as a narrative film, rather than a film where the characters constantly explain the story directly to the audience. The girl speaking to the audience at certain points was not intended to “explain the subject”; it was a storytelling device to establish intimacy and allow the audience into her world. Several other reviewers actually responded positively to this choice, describing the pieces-to-camera as something that invited them into her experience.

Similarly, we don't believe that every dialogue sequence needs to be fast-paced. Narrative storytelling has rhythm — tension, silence, intimacy, humour, calm and escalation. The slower moments were intentional because we wanted the audience to experience the relationship before the tonal shift in the final act. Interestingly, other reviewers specifically praised the emotional beats, chemistry and gradual rise in tension, while one reviewer even said they were glad the film did not end “all sugary and sweet.”

We completely accept that the ending may not have worked for the judges personally. That's part of filmmaking — audiences and judges will interpret the same story differently. But we would have appreciated the feedback being framed more around why the narrative failed to work for them, rather than implying that the story needed to become a happy-ending family film.

This was our first 48HOURS experience, and we entered because we wanted to take a creative risk, tell a story we believed in and become part of the filmmaking community. We are grateful for the opportunity and for everyone who watched and reviewed our film.

At the same time, the experience has made us question whether this competition is the right creative environment for us in the future. We came to make a film, not simply to satisfy an assumed formula for what a genre should look like.

We respect the judges' opinions, but we also hope future judging allows more room for different interpretations of genre, narrative structure, pacing and endings. Not every family story needs to end happily — sometimes the story is about what happens when it doesn't.

Thank you again for watching Between Us and for taking the time to give us your thoughts.