Double delight for city team at short film fest in Mumbai

Nagpur: A couple of short films made by a team from the city won two prizes at the recently held India Film Project Season 7 in Mumbai. India Film Project is seen as Asia's largest content creation and short film festival.

The festival saw more than 28,200 filmmakers from more than 290 cities across 18 countries make 1,503 films in 50 hours. Kundan Sad, Aditya Sharma, and their team, who make up Create-e-witty Media Notions, won the prizes at the festival held at Nehru Centre on October 1.

Footsteps, a six-minute film, portrays the daily routine of four people who come together on a Friday night. It went on to win the platinum film award for best movie in the mobile film category. Faulen, another six-minute film, which depicted two rival magicians — a young woman and her grandfather — won the gold film award for best movie in the professional film category.

The awards were given by director and judge Aniruddh Roy Chowdhury, who made the critically acclaimed film 'Pink'.

The theme for the festival was 'everything is connected'. Both the films were made within a set time limit of fifty hours. "The theme is disclosed to the participants all over the world at the same time when the clock starts," said Sad. The duo had scouted for a team of film enthusiasts in the city and participated this year with nearly the same members.

Both the films were directed by director Sharma. Sad was the team leader as well as the director of photography. Chetan Gughane was the executive producer. Pawan Piprode was in-charge of post-production and the scripts were written by Ankit Bhuptani. The same team won the gold film award in the amateur film category last year. Actress Bianca Nazareth-Arya's work in Faulen received special mention and was praised unanimously by the jury and the audience.

Talking about his experience, Sad said, "It was a drill we were familiar with and we went through it with confidence. I feel the technical team, which is always behind-the-scene, played the most important part. It was all about pushing your limits."

Sharma said he was confident that the film will do good. "The team understood what I wanted from them and they fulfilled my vision," he said.

Sad and Sharma started Create-e-witty last year and have made short films together. One of their short films was presented at Realtime International Film Festival in Nigeria this year. The duo is planning on dabbling in making web series before starting to shoot a feature film in December this year. Sad (27) is a pharmacy graduate whereas Sharma (32) is an engineer who left the job at a reputed company to follow his passion.