Filmmaker Arati Kadav says shooting of her upcoming sci-fi Cargo, featuring Shweta Tripathi and Vikrant Massey as astronauts, is complete and the team is aiming for a festival run before a theatrical release.

The film chronicles the story of a space ship which comes close to Earth every morning and cargos start coming.

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“Cargos are people who recently died on earth. So it is like an immigration office for dead people set on a spaceship! But there isn’t only one but several space ships which do that and these two people (Shweta and Vikrant) are just a peg in a very big organisation,” Arati said.

The director says Masaan actor Shweta and Vikrant, who shot to fame with “A Death in the Gunj”, were very excited with the idea of the film and agreed to come on board immediately.

“Cargo” is produced by Fundamental Pictures and Dream Printing company along with filmmakers Vikramaditya Motwane and Anurag Kashyap who are independently backing the film.

Usually sci-fi films are mounted on huge budgets and a grand scale, but the director says her film is “one millionth” of Alfonso Cuar n’s Oscar nominated “Gravity”, considered a landmark film in the genre.

“We knew we had less budget for this film. And we tried to come up with solutions to make this world authentic not just in terms of techniques to show zero gravity but also make people believe it is a big film.”

To get the nuances correct, Arati says, the team did extensive research, by watching all the big Hollywood films including “Gravity”.

The director says she has experimented and added a twist of mythology to her sci-fi film.

“I wanted to make a sci-fi (film) where I weave in the whole concept of ‘raakshas and Yamraj’ and make it enjoyable,” Arati says, who previously made a short film called “Ravan” featuring director Vasan Bala who played the titular part.

The film is currently in post production.