Young dentist wins three awards at India Film Project

Nagpur: For Dr Rishab Joshi, it was a triple treat when he got it all correct in his first effort as a filmmaker. His film ‘Wake Up’ won three awards for best film, best story and best acting at the India Film Project competition held in Mumbai on October 13 and 14.
The competition is a 50-hour filmmaking challenge and in its 8th season, 32,000 filmmakers participated from 11 countries. There are three categories — Amateur, mobile and professional. Joshi participated in the amateur segment.

“This was my first try at filmmaking and the fact that my film became the only one to get three awards, of which two were across all categories, is very motivating,” says Joshi who works at VSPM Dental College. “The jury comprised well known filmmakers. So, this is a sort of validation of my work,” he adds.

Speaking about the challenge, he says, “We get only 50 hours to conceptualize the story and shoot and edit the film and add background music. It was my brother Rigved, also a doctor, who wrote the story. It is about a person who suffers from narcolepsy and insomnia.”

Joshi, along with his ten-member crew, shot the 3 minutes 12 second film at 20 locations across the city. “We get one day to conceptualize and script the film and have to shoot it the next day and complete the editing and music. It was very hectic but fortunately we managed it well,” adds the filmmaker whose entire crew comprised his friends and those he has worked with before.

“I have been a writer for a kid’s magazine which I later edited too. Then, I did portrait photography and also shot some music videos,” says Joshi. He attributes these awards to the style in which he made this film. “I followed the quick pace of music videos. The storyline too was very unique which I feel worked for the film,” he says.

The awards have fetched him an invite as a delegate to the JIO Mami Film Festival at Mumbai.