Award-Winning Stop Motion Animated Short | Tokri (The Basket)

A clumsy accident leads a young girl to the streets of Mumbai in the hope of making things right from Indian animators, Studio Eeksaurus.

Subscribe to S/W on YouTube!

TOKRI
Directed by Suresh Eriyat

The spark for today's short film came from an everyday experience, simple and mundane. Traversing the crowded streets of Mumbai in his car, animator Suresh Eriyat was approached by a young girl selling baskets. Eriyat shooed her away—it is assumed by most that the hordes of children who pounce upon motorists at the stoplights of the city are organized by gangs, thus any charity exhibited directly rewards the practice of putting children to work as beggars. Yet, despite the unremarkable nature of this occurrence, Eriyat was struck by guilt. Describing the thoughts that circled his mind, he writes, "What if she was in a precarious situation where she had to sell baskets to bring peace to her home? What if she needed some help from Me? How insensitive of me?" The premise of a story was born, one that would take 8 years to bring to completion.

That Tokri should take 8 years to create is in some sense a surprise. One of India's foremost independent animators, Eriyat is astonishingly prolific, with over 450 completed works in a multitude of styles: stop-motion, 3D, and 2D hand-drawn, among other techniques. Much of this output is commercial work, for which he's been duly recognized—honors from the Clios and Cannes Lions are on his resumé, as well as the status of being India's first winner of an Annecy Cristal, but now a decade out from the creation of his own studio alongside his wife, Nilima, Eriyat's ambition has grown to ever more elaborate personal projects, of which Tokri is the crowning achievement to date.

While a relatively simple story, grounded in the lived experience of India's destitute, Tokri overflows with detail. The scale of the production is truly remarkable—we adore stop-motion, with over 100 films in our collection, but despite the overwhelming diversity of subjects and styles you'll encounter while traversing the catalog there are a few commonalities to the majority of them: tight compositions, confined spaces, relatively few characters. These decisions are often right for the story, but they are also a compromise to the pain-staking nature of the craft, an attempt to reduce complexity within scenes. An unusual degree of motion abounds within even simple scenes in Tokri, and Eriyat and his team are unafraid of going wide as well, in shots that seek to depict the cacophony of the Mumbai streetscape and which encompass dozens of moving elements. We always love a good stop-motion timelapse, and the video below gives you a good sense of the undertaking.

CREDITS
Story and Direction: Suresh Eriyat
Producer: Nilima Eriyat
Director of Photography: Srinivas Reddy
Music Director: Rajat Dholakia
Sound Design: Jayesh Dhakan
Storyboard: Suresh Eriyat, Ritvik Roy, Mukund Bhalegare, Arun Rane
Character Design: Nikhil Joshi, Mukund Bhalegare, Arun Rane, Amey Dhamnaskar, Pravin Kadam
Animation: Mukund Bhalegare, Adam Wyrwas, Sanjay Patkar, Swati Agarwal
Art Direction: Sandeep Meher, Krishna Kedar, Sandeep Shelar, Ashok Lokare, Bhaskar Shindey
Character Modelling: Mukund Bhalegare, Sanjay Patkar, Shailesh Chindarkar, Ramesh Jhadav, Vishal Mhatre
Props Design: Sandeep Meher, Bhaskar Shinde, Krishna Kedar, Sanjay Patkar, Shailesh Chindarkar, Ramesh Jhadav, Vishal Mhatre, Amey Dhamnaskar, Alpita Parkar
Colourist: Michele Ricossa
Grading facility: Prime Focus- Mumbai
Prop Lighting: Sanjay Patkar
Layout Exploration: Rupali Gatti
Exterior shoot coordination: V.S Bargav
Post Production VFX Supervisor: Nilesh A. Dhore
Compositing Team: Shakti Mehra, Priyansh Gupta
Roto Paint: Studio V Sync, Amey Dhamanaskar
Title design: Nijin Nazeem
Ttile Animation: Priyansh Gupta
Post Production Coordinator: Jivan Gaikawad, Rohit Mokashi, Punya Krishnan
Sound Studio: Ajivansh Studio, Brahmanand, Futureworks Media Ltd.
Sound Re-recording: Rhitwik Raj Pathak (Futureworks Media Ltd.)
SFX Editor: Debraj Biswal
Violin:Manas Kumar
Banjo: Rashid Khan
Additional vocals: Ananya Eriyat, Suresh Eriyat
Documentation and editing: Tintu K Philip, Bargav Sridar
Accounts: Chetan Varia, Vijay Desai
Technical Support: Praveen Parameswaran

Reproduced on this channel with the permission of the filmmakers.

[surinmansukh]

These stories must be shown in schools during moral science classes so that we all develop as good human being.

[dileep-kumar]

Salute to those parents who do not leave or despise their children if they fail in life.

[shiwanisha]

This is the first Indian stop motion I've ever seen and it was the best one as well. Maybe because its close to home it hit my heart....❤

[mantidream]

Both the daughter and father learned a lesson here. Something precious is not easily replaced, and family is the most precious thing of all.

[namishshaikh]

People who are poor, lives so humbly, doing the daily routine, struggling for their basic necessities, find happiness in little things, appreciate and value what they have and what they got, and other people making their life miserable by insulting them, destroying their homes and what not, although that these people still carry on with hopes in their hearts that one day their life will be better, anywhere, rich or poor, a father's love is constant for his kids.

[ashischatterjee]

I wonder how much, difficult it is to make those dolls, houses, public places, vehicles. It was Realistic!!

[RoseyRose]

I was thinking "stranger danger" as soon as she got into his car!

[Blackmambama]

No matter what they do, a parents unconditional love always live on for their children.

[shivanitheimmortalbhaktofs]

At first when she got the Clock repaired and her father hugged he, a tear rolled down my eyes.. But suddenly when I realised that it was her dream and that Man in car just blew her baskets off the road, my heart felt ache... But ultimately her father comes to her as usual and handles the broken heart child..
This ultimately made me believe that however heart broken parents are, they somehow manage to not let their child's heart be broken..
Love to the team and Thanks for showing up this video on this open stage

[humairanaz]

There is a lesson that only parents can forgive our mistakes, rest of the world is cruel and nonsensitive towards other people, parents can sacrifice each and everything they have for the sake of their children, no matter how poor they are...May God Always Bless These Kind of Parents (Ameen) Beautiful Video!!! ♥

[Maheshpanda]

These kind of talent are not considered as mainstream in India rather those cheap chota bheem kind of animations are highly appreciated

[firstofallbasics]

I was shocked to see her not being helped by even a single person as if I was not ready for that.

[ekkkkksh]

Oh God, when she got into the car with the man. I legit thought the film was going to take a dark turn.

[rashiarera]

And I waited for them to not show that the dad was selfish... And i finally got it ♥, a Father can be hurt, but won't ever abandon his child.

[TheSMU]

This short film left tears in my eyes and the sad end of this film is the reality of today's world

[geetasharma]

this kind of movie in today's time is beyond of our imagination. It reminds us our childhood days when we watched this type of things on Doordarshan.

[ajax]

I am always obsessed with Japanese animations(Anime). But never have thought my country India too have such amazing talents.Hats off to the creators.

[orchidlilly]

The daughter understood how the Father felt, as her precious work was destroyed too, yet the Father understood her too. Thank-you*

[yugeshh]

This magnificent short took 8 years to make. Just a perspective, every minute of this short took approximately 4925 hours to make. That's about 205 days. Its insane !

[SYNTHXX]

Moral of the story: People are more important than object. The father realises this and forgives his daughter for her mistake.
(Thank you Audrey George for pointing out my mistake!)