But Arka hasn't stopped there and has made two short films while in Palmy. He's screening them at the Globe Theatre on April 9-11.
Distancing explores the crumbling marriage of John (Cam Dickons) and Rose (Taryn Field) after Rose discovers her husband's infidelity with his colleague, Kat (Lydia Smith).
Arka wrote, directed and filmed Distancing. He grew up watching Bollywood movies and wanted to break away from the trope of a cheating husband going back to his wife and his mistress being okay with that.
As Distancing is very much character focused, Arka took the actors through six weeks of rehearsals. He says Rose and John developed excellent chemistry.
His first short film, Udiyoman (Bengali for emerging), is the story of a man's (Sam Wyss) experience with depression and disassociation. Arka says disassociation is being lost in a black void and devoid of anything.
"Even though he's trying to get away from this particular state he doesn't know how."
There is no dialogue, instead music and a lot of jumping from one scene to the next help tell the story. There was just him and Sam on the set.
"Pretty much all my filmmaking I have learnt from YouTube tutorials," Arka says.
He also learnt the craft through watching movies - and learnt a lot of English watching movies with subtitles.
Bengali is his mother language, Hindi his second language and English his third.
Asked what he likes about Palmy, Arka replies "what don't I like about Palmy". But the thing he likes the most is the people.
"I've met with so many stunning people in Palmy, especially the art community."
He says without his involvement in theatre life would have been quite mundane. Palmy has made him more creative.
"I have found something in Palmy that I was searching for because I have been able do all this creative stuff that I have yearned to do."
