Stray Factory is an Indian
Independent
Independent or Independents may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups
* Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s
* Independe ...
entertainment
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousan ...
company founded on July 17, 2010 by
Mathivanan Rajendran
Mathivanan Rajendran (born 12 January) is an Indian actor and film producer. He produces films under his production company, Stray Factory which produces independent Indian films. Most recent productions include '' Nirvana Inn'' (2019) and '' N ...
as a performing arts company before diversifying into online media in 2014 and independent film in 2017.
Upcoming films include ''
Nirvana Inn'' (2019) & ''
Nasir
Nasir ( ar, ناصر, translit=Nāṣir) is a masculine given name, commonly found in Arabic which can mean "helper" or "one who gives victory" (grammatically the Stem I masculine singular active participle of consonantal verb root ''n-ṣ-r'') ...
'' (2020).
Overview
2010–2014: Theatre and early years
After a few scripted plays, the company made a departure from traditional scripted work to devised theatre. The first of which was seen in their 2011 production of ''Great Indian Blogologues'' which took blogs from the public and adapted them to stage.
Stray Factory's biggest achievements have been in the short format, particularly at International
Short and Sweet festivals, notable plays include ''My Name is Cine-Ma''
''Carpouram'', ''Typist with Destiny,'' ''Lost Audition'', ''Chairpersons'' & ''
Maya from Madurai
''Maya from Madurai'' is an Indian play written by Naren Weiss. The play explores the life and death of a drug dealer, and marked the directorial debut of actress Pooja Devariya. It premiered at the 2013 edition of the Short and Sweet Festival i ...
''. The group has performed at ''Short and Sweet'' Festivals in Sydney, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Los angeles and at other International festivals such as the ''Auckland Fringe Festival, The Park New Festival of Contemporary Arts, Hollywood Fringe Festival &
National Arts Festival
The National Arts Festival (NAF) is an annual festival of performing arts in Grahamstown, South Africa. It is the largest arts festival on the African continent and one of the largest performing arts festivals in the world by visitor numbers.
T ...
in
Grahamstown
Makhanda, also known as Grahamstown, is a town of about 140,000 people in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. It is situated about northeast of Port Elizabeth and southwest of East London. Makhanda is the largest town in the Makana Loc ...
, Kakiseni Theatre Festival'' in Kuala Lumpur and the ''Hindu Metroplus Theatre Festival''.
In 2016, the group was awarded the Emerging Artist Award at the Short and Sweet Festival in Hollywood, California.
A number of Stray Factory's members have forayed into films including
Pooja Devariya Mathivanan Rajendran
Mathivanan Rajendran (born 12 January) is an Indian actor and film producer. He produces films under his production company, Stray Factory which produces independent Indian films. Most recent productions include '' Nirvana Inn'' (2019) and '' N ...
,
Rajiv Rajaram,
Venkatesh Harinathan
Venkatesh Harinathan is an Indian actor, who appears in Tamil cinema (Kollywood).
Career
Venkatesh made his acting careers in Stage Plays. He belongs to Chennai-based theater group Stray Factory and also appeared in various Television Commerc ...
. Performers who have worked with the group have transitioned to film like
Hiphop Tamizha
Hiphop Tamizha () is an Indian musical duo based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. The duo consists of Adhithya "Adhi" Venkatapathy and R. Jeeva.
Their commercial break-through came with the song "Club le Mabbu le" in 2011. In 2012, Hiphop Tamizha rel ...
Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli
Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli is a National award winning Indian actress who predominantly works in Tamil and Malayalam films. A post graduate in human resource management from Madras School of Social Work, she joined the English theatre company ...
,
Rishi Raj,
Amzath Khan,
Ma Ka Pa Anand and
Vidyullekha Raman
Vidyullekha Raman (born 4 November 1991), also known as Vidyu Raman, is an Indian actress and comedienne who appears in Tamil and Telugu films. The daughter of actor Mohan Raman, Vidyullekha made her debut in Gautham Vasudev Menon's 2012 '' ...
.
Director
M. Manikandan
M. Manikandan is an Indian director, writer and cinematographer who works in Tamil cinema. He began his career as an assistant cinematographer in Tamil films. He made his directorial debut with the short film ''Wind'' (2010) and got his breakth ...
developed short theatre scenes by improvising with the group and represented a fictional version of the group in
Andavan Kattalai.
2014–2017: Youtube and webseries
Stray Factory launched
Rascalas on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second most ...
in 2014 in partnership with Culture Machine to focus on South Indian content. The first video was launched on November 4, 2014 and subsequently garnered 2 million views and is widely recognised as the first viral video from South India. In 2016, it produced one of South India's first web series with
Black Sheep (2016) and first non-fiction web series, Stray Stories. These shows and other content have been syndicated to several OTT platforms including
YuppTV
YuppTV is an over-the-top (OTT) content provider for South Asian content including live television and films with recording and storage features. YuppTV allows broadcasters and content providers to reach an audience, and allows consumers to vie ...
and
TVF Play.
2017–present: Independent film and international co-productions
Stray Factory's primarily works on International Co-productions having worked with films attached to the
Hubert Bals Fund
Hubertus Bernardus "Huub" Bals (February 3, 1937 – July 13, 1988) was the first director and creator of International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), formerly named Film International. IFFR started small in the Calypso cinema and film theat ...
,
Asian Project Market,
NFDC co-production market and
BIFAN IT Project. Current films in production are ''
Nasir & Nirvana Inn.''
Filmography
Series
Films
Footnotes
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Theatre companies in India