STREETGODS
THE PITCH DECK
A 70-minute cinema verite documentary · Directed by Akash Girish · Mr.B Films · India · 2028
PITCH
THE PITCH DECK
A 70-minute cinema verite documentary · Directed by Akash Girish · Mr.B Films · India · 2028
Driven by the fear of rabies, dogs' killings have spiked nationwide in just eight months. Man’s best friend is now the enemy number one.
In 2023, the Indian government passed the Animal Birth Control Rules. Catch. Sterilize. Vaccinate. Return. At scale. Humane and scientifically sound. The onus fell on the overworked municipal bodies.
After a 6-year-old girl in Delhi died of rabies in June 2025, the Supreme Court ruled on the “street dog menace.” It ordered stray dogs relocated into overcrowded municipal pounds.
Dogs are territorial. A hundred strangers, one cage. In eight months, dog killings spiked out of control nationwide.
Fear spread like wildfire. Mobilized by the housing. Families who fed the dogs for years suddenly found neighbours at the gate.
A collision between two legitimate truths. Nobody has figured out how to reconcile them.
The official estimate is a work of fiction. But every number is staggering.
Chennai at night. The dogs, the feeders, the rescues, the fight for a life. This is the world the camera breathes.
Eight thousand years on these streets. The film opens its door here.
I picked up my camera because I had to put the grief somewhere. I went looking for the first person who had also loved Mr.B. That person was Cynthia Moses. Talking to her, I understood the film I was making was too small.
76 years old. Every night for 20 years.
11 PM to 2 AM, she rides a little scooter through Korattur, Chennai. Two buckets of food. Over 200 dogs.
She spread compassion as an answer to her own grief.
Their argument is nothing but facts. A child died of rabies in Delhi. In densely packed Indian neighbourhoods, children and the elderly live with a real threat. Countries have eliminated rabies within their borders; India has not. As long as the disease exists, they argue, dogs have no place in the middle of modern society.
Rabies kills. Deaths by bite are rare, but not zero. It is fear that drives some people to reach for the poison , and when it spreads unchecked, neighbourhood after neighbourhood turns against the very dogs a feeder has spent years caring for.
Animal activists vs. public safety. Neither side is wrong.
The Supreme Court promised control. What followed was chaos.
My own family felt it. Our own street dogs, neutered, vaccinated, never aggressive , suddenly the whole neighbourhood demanded they be taken to the pounds.
I saw, first hand, how misinformation bakes into real fear.
India never gets close to the 70% target at a national level. A national catch-vaccinate-release drive would require an estimated 1.1 million vaccinators , infrastructure that does not exist. Investment in dog vaccination is under 0.5% of the disease’s economic burden. India carries about 36% of all global rabies deaths.
The Feeders & the rescuers. Dogs are part of this land just as much as we are. Compassion, every night.
The Mirror. Street dogs carry disease and fear. Their argument is nothing but facts.
The Machinery. Underfunded, understaffed, tangled in red tape. Not villains , victims of bureaucracy.
No villain. Just fear, on every side. No easy answers.
No tripods. No formal setups.
The camera moves the way the dogs move.
It observes. It follows. It lingers.
A constant invisible presence. I get things wrong on camera. I change my mind. No talking heads, only conversations. Retro Tamil music and the warmth of a flamenco guitar carry the chaos and tenderness of Chennai’s streets. The film ends where it began: quiet, personal. And a walk through a Decathlon with Brando.
I fell in love with cinema when my dad put on a VCD of Titanic when I was 10. I studied cinematography at the Madras Film Institute. Eight years across Tamil, Telugu and Hindi feature films, in the cinematography crews of PC Sreeram, Yamini Yagnamurthy, Sivakumar Vijayan and Sethu Sriram , from assistant to camera operator.
I dismissed documentaries as a lesser art. Then COVID struck. Baraka, Samsara, Chronos and Koyaanisqatsi, back to back, with my editor and best friend Aswin. Reality is indeed stranger than fiction. The seed was planted.
D.F.Tech, Madras Film Institute. 8 years across Indian features. First non-fiction film. Believes cinema is a conglomeration of arts.
8 years across Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Kannada cinema. Madras Film Institute alumnus. Not just an editor , a writer, because he weaves the narrative.
Madras Film Institute alumnus. Production sound mixer on Hindi projects, live-audio expert. Studio in Mumbai, ready to craft the chaos of Chennai’s streets.
WHENDevelopment · Dec 2025 → Jan 2026
FILMEDPhase 1 Photography, Chennai · Jan → May 2026
READY17-minute sample cut , available on request
IN PROGRESSPhase 2 Research & Development, All India · Jul 2026 → Feb 2027
SHOOTPhase 2 Photography · Mar → Apr 2027
EDITEditing · Apr → Sep 2027
POSTPost Production · Sep → Dec 2027
RELEASEJanuary 2028
The story is local; the issue is global. World premiere held for an international festival , then grassroots. A streaming partner and a television rights partner bring it to the interiors of India. Community screenings in the places where dog or man has been harmed by the other. Nothing coast. No easy answers.
Eliminate two diseases.
India needs to up its vaccination and sterilization drive. Once rabies is gone, the epidemic of fear will gradually ease.
The fight can be won by a power Mr.B had.
Cinema cannot cause change. But I believe cinema can initiate discussion. And that’s the first step to change.
Seventeen minutes of the real film , no pitch first, just the streets, the dogs, and the woman who feeds them at 11.
Director · Cinematographer · Producer · Mr.B Films
akashgirish08@gmail.com · +91 73959 43014 · Chennai, India