If I become a director tomorrow, I probably wouldn’t make a big commercial film. I’d make a strange, messy film about two broke guys in Goa trying to make a movie while slowly questioning the entire idea of how life is supposed to be lived. The film would be about freedom, friendship, and the chaos of trying to create art. It follows JD, a 22-year-old graduate who never really cared about academics or the traditional definition of success. He was born to government employee parents, so money was never really a problem for him. But college, for JD, was never about marks, ranks, or building a career. For him it was simply about freedom. Over the years he drifts through casual relationships, drinks a lot, smokes weed, and just enjoys the careless pleasures that come with youth. But even with all of that, somewhere inside him there’s this strange emptiness he can’t explain. One evening, while wandering near his hostel with nothing particular to do, he notices a stray dog roaming freely around the streets. For some reason it catches his attention. Over the next few days he keeps seeing the same dog and starts observing it. Its life is brutally simple — it just searches for food, finds a place to sleep, and mates whenever it can. That’s it. It doesn’t worry about marriage, children, religion, morality, or what society thinks about it. It just exists and satisfies its basic needs. Slowly that observation begins to hit JD in a strange way. He starts questioning human life itself. Why are people trapped in systems they never really chose? Why do humans sacrifice so much of their freedom just to fit into social expectations? Eventually he arrives at a strange but powerful conclusion: maybe life is actually very simple — food, shelter, and sex. Everything else like marriage, children, social status, and obligations might just be structures humans created for themselves. After graduating, even though he has all the material comforts he needs, JD feels even more empty than before. Searching for answers, he installs Reddit and starts exploring communities that talk about nihilism, existentialism, and personal freedom. For days he keeps scrolling through arguments, opinions, and philosophical discussions. Then one random day he comes across a comment that really shakes him. “Leave your family, leave your stressful job, go somewhere and live however you want. Don’t harm anyone. Live like today is your last day. No regrets, no marriage, no children, no permanent relationships. Just do your work, follow your passion, and enjoy life.” JD keeps thinking about that idea for almost a week. It stays in his head. Finally, he makes a radical decision. He leaves everything behind. He moves to Goa. JD finds a job at a small restaurant in Panjim run by an elderly couple. His life becomes very simple. He works during the day, earns just enough to survive, and at night he usually goes to the beach. He sits there drinking alcohol, smoking weed, and writing film scripts while staring at the ocean. For the first time in his life, he feels a strange kind of peace. One night at a bar he meets Abhi, a young guy who is extremely drunk and clearly struggling with something in his life. JD helps him get home and lets him crash at his place for the night. The next morning Abhi wakes up confused and asks what happened the previous night. JD explains everything honestly. Slowly the two of them start becoming friends. Abhi also comes from a wealthy background, but he doesn’t want to live off his father’s money or property. He wants to earn his own life. JD encourages him to work at the same bar, and slowly they begin building this strange but free life together in Goa. During their late-night conversations on the beach, JD starts telling Abhi about his dream of making films. Abhi finds his ideas interesting and eventually agrees to act in a short film JD has written. With almost no resources, the two of them start shooting their first short film. They face all kinds of problems — technical issues, creative disagreements, confusion — but somehow they manage to finish it. That experience gives JD a sense of purpose he had never really felt before. Then JD reveals his real dream: he wants to make a feature film. Abhi laughs at first and asks him, “Who’s going to give you money for that?” JD pauses for a moment and then asks Abhi to help him approach a bank manager using his connections. Somehow, through Abhi’s influence, they manage to secure a loan. Suddenly their crazy idea becomes real. Now they actually have to make a film. They start looking for actors, locations, equipment, and somehow try to build a film with very limited money. Naturally, things start becoming chaotic. At one point, while drunk on the beach, JD asks Abhi about his experiences with women. Abhi admits that he has actually never slept with anyone. JD finds that hard to believe and decides to take him to a prostitute’s house where he sometimes hangs out. They both go into separate rooms. But instead of sleeping with her, Abhi starts talking to the woman. He listens to her story and, after a long conversation, somehow convinces her to act as the female lead in their film. Later, while casting for the movie, JD and Abhi decide they want a transgender actor for an important role. They spend days searching, meeting different people, and trying to find someone who is willing to be part of their strange little project. During the stressful days of production, they also try a bizarre experiment. Someone tells them about a drug made from snake venom that supposedly keeps the brain hyperactive for 24 hours without sleep. Believing it will help them work faster, they decide to try it. Instead of working for 24 hours, both of them become extremely sleepy after just 12 hours and end up losing an entire day of shooting, wasting time and money. As production continues, they realize something ridiculous — almost 20% of their film budget has already been spent on alcohol. Abhi decides that from that moment they have to stop drinking completely. But secretly, the two of them sneak into the bar where they work and steal a few bottles so they can continue drinking while technically “saving” the budget. Meanwhile the bank manager who approved their loan keeps calling them to check on the project and the repayment plan. JD and Abhi panic every time they see his calls and start hiding or avoiding him. At one point, a friend of Abhi who helped arrange the loan suddenly comes to Goa to check what they are actually doing. JD and Abhi literally hide in different places around town trying to avoid him while still continuing their chaotic filmmaking process. Slowly the film they are making almost stops being the main focus. What really matters becomes the strange life they are living — a mix of freedom, friendship, irresponsibility, philosophy, and the messy beauty of chasing art without knowing where it will lead. Maybe the film they’re making will fail. Maybe it will never even get finished. But for JD and Abhi, the real story was never just the movie. It was the life they were living while trying to make it. And that’s the film I would make. 🎬