Terribly Tiny Tales, an online group of writers who create a story that is the length of a tweet every day, commissioned five filmmakers to direct five-minute shorts to celebrates Mother’s Day. The theme, naturally, is “mother”. The group had conducted a similar exercise around "love" on Valentine's Day in February.

Karan Shetty’s Cuddly and Amit Masurkar’s L celebrate, in very different ways, the can-do spirit of life-givers. Here is L, featuring Tannishta Chatterjee, who wants to ride a scooter, and Pankaj Tripathi as her husband.



“I really enjoy reading Terribly Tiny Tales, and I missed being a part of the previous set of films,” said Masukar, director of the indie feature Sulemani Keeda. “I didn’t want to do a regular film on ‘maa ki mamta’ [mother’s love], so this is something I came up.”

In Piyush Raghani’s Cheers, a young man meets his alcoholic mother after a gap of several years. The short quickly lapses into a tea commercial, but the well-preserved Anju Mahendru is still a damn fine sight.

Srinivas Sunderrajan delivers a twist on the “mamta” theme in his wicked short. Renowned Marathi actress Suhita Thatte plays a pushy saleswoman who is peddling a “Mamta Tonic”, the cure for all ills. The film tracks her enthusiastic sales pitches to customers who react with varying degrees of interest.



Sunderrajan co-wrote the story with Kartik Krishnan, the writer and actor who was the protagonist of Sunderrajan’s 2010 debut indie The Untitled Kartik Krishnan Project. Terribly Tiny Talkies producers Chintan Ruparel and Anuj Gosalia gave the filmmakers complete freedom in choosing their stylistic approaches, Sunderrajan said. “Features are fun too, but the challenge of time and pacing in a short format is what makes it even more interesting to work on”, said Sunderrajan, who has also directed other shorts and the feature Greater Elephant.

Surya Balkrishnan’s contribution to Mother’s Day is about maternal absence. Marathi writer and actor Girish Kulkarni plays a widowed father who has to negotiate a tricky moment in his fast-growing daughter’s life. Here is Arre Baba, one of the most affecting films in the package.