Stray Factory

Stray Factory is an Indian Independent entertainment company founded on July 17, 2010 by Mathivanan Rajendran as a performing arts company before diversifying into online media in 2014 and independent film in 2017.[1] Upcoming films include Nirvana Inn (2019) & Nasir (2020)[2]

Stray Factory

Type	Private
Industry	Entertainment
Founded	July 2010
Founder	Mathivanan Rajendran
Headquarters	Chennai, Tamil Nadu , India
Products	Films, Performing Arts
Services	Film production

Overview

2010–2014: Theatre & 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[1]Carpouram, Lost Audition, Chairpersons & Maya from Madurai.[3][4] The group has performed at Short and Sweet Festivals in Sydney, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Los angeles[5] and at other International festivals such as the Auckland Fringe Festival, The Park New Festival of Contemporary Arts, Hollywood Fringe Festival & National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, Kakiseni Theatre Festival in Kuala Lumpur and the Hindu Metroplus Theatre Festival [6]

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 and Venkatesh Harinathan. Performers who have worked with the group have transitioned to film like Hiphop Tamizha Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli, Rishi Raj, Amzath Khan, Ma Ka Pa Anand and Vidyullekha Raman

Director M. Manikandan developed short theatre scenes by improvising with the group and represented a fictional version of the group in Andavan Kattalai.

2014–2017: Youtube & Webseries

Stray Factory launched Rascalas on YouTube 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 and TVF Play

2017–Present: Independent Film & International Co-productions

Stray Factory's primarily works on International Co-productions having worked with films attached to the Hubert Bals Fund, Asian Project Market, NFDC co-production market and BIFAN IT Project. Current films in production are Nasir & Nirvana Inn.

Filmography

Series

Year	Film	Cast	Creator
2016	Black Sheep	Shyam Renganathan, Janaki Sabesh, Jiva Ravi	Bhargav Prasad
2019	Speakeasy	Lakshmi Priyaa Chandramouli, Ashok Selvan, Rishi Raj, Abishek George	Drishya Gautham, Tarana Reddy

Films

Year	Film	Director	Cast	Notes
2019	Nirvana Inn	Hindi	Vijay Jayapal	Selection Asian Project Market 2018 Winner Asian Cinema Fund 2019 24th Busan International Film Festival 2019
2020	Nasir	Tamil	Arun Karthick	Selection NFDC Film Bazaar Co-production Market 2017 Hubert Bals Script & Development Fund HBF + NFF Coproduction Grant NETPAC winner International Film Festival of Rotterdam
2020	B.Selvi & Daughters	Tamil		Short Film
2021	The Displaced	Tamil	Vijay Jayapal	Selection NFDC Film Bazaar Co-production Market 2019
2021	Aasaimugam	Tamil	Arun Karthick
2019	Freddies Piano	English	Aakash

Footnotes

1. The Hindu, 2010-05-17
2. October 23, Krupa Ge On; 2019 (2019-10-23). "Mathivanan Rajendran On How Adil Hussain Starrer 'Nirvana Inn' Raised Funds Without Compromising On The Maker's Vision". Silverscreen.in. Retrieved 2020-02-09.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
3. Short Plays
4. The Hindu, 2013-07-08
5. About us
6. The Hindu, 2012-07-26