National and international  awards, and coveted selections at the most prestigious film festivals of the world are quite a regular feature of SRFTI’s achievement graph. Take a quick tour of the archive of accolades SRFTI has received so far.

Between The Rains

Direction: Samimitra Das

Camera: Siddhartha Diwan

Edit: Rashmima Dutta

Sound: Bina C. Amakkadu

The story is about the city, for that matter where people from all parts of the country come in search of work and embark on their own individual journeys. Priorities and choices we take as individuals under circumstances make us who we are. Honesty is an opportunity cost and our stakes get defined by it. All the characters are at different stages of breaking out from their compartmentalized identities that society inflicts on them. Some individuals stay inside it and revolt by being indifferent and ignoring the need to make a choice which affects the other person. They end up staying in their own little islands. While others, take a higher risk and put more at stake and have faith in a chance encounter and the belief that they will connect with each other.

 

Awards: Rashmima Dutta (Best Editing short fiction above 10 mins., NSFA)

 

Daak Nouka

Direction: Rohitaswa Mukherjee

Camera: Ramanuj Dutta

Edit: Avik Mondal

Sound: Nilotpal

 

“DAAK NOUKA” is a film which tells a fairytale about a small coastal village and the people living there. It has a linear documentation of their day to day monotonous life with the help of few subtle abstractions. With those subtle abstractions, every character of this fairytale gives birth of freedom to their internal wings of desire …and life goes on.

 

Awards: Rohitaswa Mukherjee (Best Script, NSFA)

 

Doyam

Direction: Shakeel Mohammad

Camera: Rukma Readdy

Edit: Atanu Mukherjee

Sound: Sudipto Mukhopadhyay

 

This story is about a boxer Hatim who like his failed father is on the verge of losing it all. He is in debt, he is losing his matches and has stopped communicating with his wife. He struggles with the guilt and the agony of having lost his father. Doyam in Urdu, means “second”. But is it second failure or second chance?

Awards: Sudipto Mukhopadhyay (Best Sound Design short fiction above 10 mins., NSFA)

 

Song Of The Butterflies

Direction: Torsha Banerjee

Camera: Rohit Singh Rana

Edit: Swapnita Roychoudhury

Sound: Anindit Roy

 

In a world bustling with lights and colors , a small blind school, situated in a remote village of Eastern India, is striving with a different spasm for life. It’s a story of an organic relationship between a space and a few blind characters. Adoori, a small ten year old girl shows her boxes full of earrings and bangles , her new clothes… and lives with the belief that ‘ I am beautiful’, whereas Hasibullah, a 7 year old boy imitates the sounds arounds him  and connects the world with his own symphony. Yasin , Tabassum , Shumon , Gautam… Each character comes with a unique story to tell and flows with the rapturous mood of the film. This documentary is a glimpse of the conversations, rolling between a few unlit eyes and an unknown space.

 

Awards: Torsha Banerjee (Jury Special Mention, NSFA)

Birds Of Passage

 

Direction : Ashim Paul

Camera : Anil Pingua

Edit: Shivanshu Pathak

Sound : Sulagno Banerjee

Both of them were alienated before they meet up. They spoke to each other. They shared their personal memories. Hesitation became the major factor for creating distance between them. However, both of them overpowered their own emotions. Gradually, they became good friends. Was it really supposed to happen? Where has their feminine ego gone?

Awards: Anil Pingua (Best Student Cinematographer Award Of The Year, Kodak)

Panchabhuta

 

Direction: Mohan Kumar Valasala

Camera: Sunny Lahiri

Edit: Charitra Gupt Raj

Sound: Iman Chakraborty

The permanence of elements defines the basic character of any space. A space may have a tendency towards being incoherent for the average human perception. In contrast, for everyday inhabitants the seemingly uninhabitable space becomes a part of their accustomed daily life. The presence of elements coupled with the routine of the inhabitants from the crux of ‘Panchabhuta’.

Awards: Mohan Kumar Valasala (Jury Special Mention)

Sunny Lahiri (Navroz Contractor Award for Best Cinematography)

Best Film (Nonfiction), National Students’ Film Award

Charitra Gupt Raj (Best Editing (Nonfiction), NSFA)

Iman Chakraborty (Best Sound Design (Nonfiction), NSFA)

 

Sita Haran Aur Anya Kahaniyan

 

Direction: Anusha Nandakumar

Camera: Nikhil Arolkar

Edit: Diksha Sharma

Sound: Sujoy Das

Music: Satyaki

This is a short experimental film of a storyteller and his world of stories. When his daughter dies, he loses his motivation to tell his stories and the character in his stories start talking over. He lives in an illusionary world where he is unable to distinguish between his characters anymore and get stuck between reality and fiction.

Awards: Anusha Nandakumar (Best Music Video,  I D S F F, Kerala)

Thug Beram

 

Direction: Venkat S Amudhan

Camera: Tarun K. Rakeshiya

Edit: Swapnita Roy Choudhury

Sound: Vineet Vashistha

Life is programmed from events happening around one’s surroundings where nothing is right or wrong but things just move on relentlessly. Firoz’s life revolves around his work in the café. It is in this café that an event forms a part of Firoz. What happens in the end and who is at the receiving end is not as important as the impact it creates on Firoz as he witnesses life around him ‘lived’, which is what ‘Thug Beram’ is about.

Awards: Venkat S Amudhan (Sonje Award 16th Busan International Film Festival)

Best Film Short fiction upto 10 mins. National Students’ Film Award

Kusum

 

Dir: Shumona Banerjee

Camera: Raghavendra Matam

Edit: Manas Mittal

Sound: Avik Chatterjee

 

Can hope be found in the most unusual places among the most unlikely characters? A young women transvestite prostitute, Kusum, locked up in her room, gears up for a regular night like any other. Just then enters Purab, an out of job English literature teachersuffering from Tourettesyndrome and obsessive compulsive behavior, without a clue of the local language. He spent his meager savings to spend one night with a girl and finds himself stuck  with a boy! Both can’t understnd what the other is saying. All hell breaks loose! Will these two people, manage a connection? Perhaps like a flower budbursting through a crack in the wall, an unexpected begining will see them through.

 

Awards: Shumona Banerjee

• Silver lamptree award (2nd prize best short film), IFFI,short film centre, International short film & documentary competition, Goa
• Silver Busho,  Busho/ Budapest international short film festival, Budapest
• Best campus film – shorts & documentary film festival Hyderabad
• Silver Comma (best short fiction) alpaviram south asian short & Documentary film festival, NID, Ahmedabad
• Riyad Wadia award for best emerging Indian filmmaker, Mumbai International Queer Film Festival, Mumbai
• Best film & best editing: Cut.In film fest, TISS,
• Best short film (2nd prize best short film) Asian video awards, Chennai
• Best short film (2nd prize best short film) video vision, NSIT, Surat

 

                        The Boxing Ladies

 

Direction: Anusha Nandakumar

Camera: Rahul Deep Balchandran

Edit: Diksha Sharma

Sound: Sujoy Das

 

Zainab, Bushra, and Sughra are sisters. They are muslim and they are national level boxers. ‘The Boxing Ladies’ is a story of this incredible family of women, of their strong will to survive in the society and make a mark.

 

Awards: Anusha Nandakumar (Rajat Kamal, Best film on Sports, 58th National Film

 

Germ

 

Direction: Snehal Nair

Camera: Sayak Bhattacharya

Edit: Tinni Mitra

Sound: Ayan Bhattacharya

 

This is a story of a boy who is afflicted by cancer and makes an album of black and white passport picture that he found as a child.  His brother is a filmmaker and he sees this book.  Inspired after watching the pictures, he begins to collect pictures of the metropolis where they live, observing the changing horizon of the city.

 

Awards: Snehal Nair (Swarna Kamal, best Non Feature Film in the 58th National Film  Award)

Tinni Mitra (Best Editor, Non Feature film,  58th National Film Award 2010)

Sayak Bhattacharya (Best cinematography, Munich International Film Festival of Film Schools)

Snehal Nair (Best experimental film, 13th International Student Film Festival,Tel-Aviv)

 

Pocha Apple

Direction: Srinath Ravulapalli

Camera: Arindam Bhattacharyya

Edit: Apratim Chakraborty

Sound: Nairit Dey

A mentally challenged middle-aged woman living on the Kolkata streets meets another man in a similar condition on a rainy night. After the initial refusals from the women, stubborn and intense, the man succeeds in winning the woman’s company and friendship. Soon the sociopolitical developments in the city affects their relationship and lead to their separation. Alone and impassionate, the woman moves to deserted fields in the outskirts and find solace in the loneliness. The man returns and searches for the woman. When he eventually meets her, he realizes that things are not same, which leads to a tragic end

 

Awards: R.Srinath (Best Film, Bonjour India Festival)

First prize (Joint winner); Best Diploma Film at the Campus France Film School

Competition of Diploma Films

My Armenian Neighborhood

 

Direction: Samimitra Das

Camera: K Appalaswamy

Edit: Reshmima Dutta

Sound: Avik Chatterjee

The documentary takes a look at the Armenian community of Kolkata, who originally had arrived much before the city had its name. They are credited with having built the oldest building of the city.

Awards: K.Apalla Swamy (Best cinematographer 3rd I D S F F, Kerala)

 

Lal Juto

Direction: Shweta Merchant

Camera: Harindar Singh

Edit: Saikat Sekhar Roy

Sound: Sreemanti D Sharma

Shweta Merchant was at her wit’s end when her chosen child actor came down with fever on the day of the shoot. It was monsoon and ‘all the girl I saw thereafter began showing similar symptoms,’ says Merchant.  And then, by a happy chance, she found’ the sweetest girl who fitted so well in the film’ just fifteen minutes before call time. Since Merchant’s Lal Juto is about the first stirrings of romance in a fifteen-year-old boy’s heart for his otherwise annoying fourteen-year-old neighbor, the serendipitous moment of discovering the child actor fell in line with the theme of the story.

 

Awards: Sweta Marchent (Best creative idea, 11th Shanghai International Film    Festival.)

 

Khoj

Direction: Tridib Poddar

Camera: Parixit Warrier

Edit: Soumendu Bhattacharjee

Sound: Partha Pratim Barman

 

A man goes looking for his friend who disappeared ten years ago. Only his mother survives alone in the house. In this search our protagonist travels through a spectrum of life – he meets people, he meets mountains, rivers. What exactly happens with his psyche is what we experience through the visual story telling.

 

Awards: Tridib Poddar (IDPA Award (Best first film) /MIFF)

Tridib Poddar (Best Director BFJ Award)

 

Shundar Jeebon

Direction: SandipChatterjee

Camera: Mrinmoy Nandi

Edit: Malay Laha

Sound: Arijit Pal

This is the story of a writer who lived in Kolkata. He was married. One day his wife deserted him. Now he is suffering from a writer’s block, unable to write anything. He stays away from the city in an old house in the country, with an elderly woman… a widow. The incessant mating calls of the cuckoo disturbs him. He cannot stand the sweetness of it’s tone. On one such afternoon, an old friend Shanti comes looking for him. Shanti narrates a kind of ideal love that he happened to witness between a young couple whom they knew. The course of this discussion reveals that Shanti has lost his wife just the day before. Shanti did not bother to go and attend her funeral. Is he sad? Sundar Jeebon is the sour taste of beauty.

Awards: Sandip Chatterjee (Best Short Fiction, National Award,2003)

 

Abhiman Band Party

Direction: Siladitya Sanyal

Camera: Anirudh Garbyal

Edit: Sudip K. Chatterjee

Sound: Tapan Bhattacharjee

Tapas clings to a tacky band party business, acquired from his late father. Tapas hates Monoj (his mother’s lover). Inspite of mother’s dislike towards dogs, Tapas decides to bring home an Alsatian puppy. He confides in Shanti (sister in law) and borrows some money from her to buy the puppy. His visit to Decampo’s house to get the puppy leaves him in a sense of trepidation. Back home, the sudden discovery of the physical proximity between mother and Monoj exacerbates him. Frustrated he flings himself back to his only recluse – Shanti. An unexpected chain of coincidences truncates the futile exuberance to master fate. Tapas lies to Shanti about the accident her husband meets. And both of them are bound by passion and desire. Mother and Monoj decide to marry the next morning at Kalighat on the day of Rashlila. A celebration follows… Tapas shows his contempt… The eternal questions of love, passion and desire get readdressed through the film.

Awards: Siladitya Sanyal (Best Short Film BFJ Award)

 

The Egotic World

Direction: Vipin Vijay

Camera: Millind Nagamule

Edit: Pranom Dutta Majumdar

Sound: Sayandeb Mukherjee

The film is inspired by the scriptural text of ‘ Yoga Vasistham’ which explains the unfolding mystery of the life of Lord Rama. The film depicts the tale of a boy entrapped inside a ‘zone’ from which he escapes temporarily only to return and find himself elevated from the worldly pleasures. He rejects liberation and ‘merges’ into the ‘black’ bearing the sorrow of the future.

Awards: Milind Nagamule (Best Student Film in Kodak Students Festival (India))

 

Bhor

Direction: Ritubarna Chudgar

Camera: Sampad Roy

Edit: Kallol Gangopadhyay

Sound: Tapas K. Nayak

Brother and sister live in a unfriendly city. They suffer from abject poverty. In the day-to-day existence, they are constantly insulted and humiliated. Poor and unhappy, they try to recall the days when they were glad and contended. This takes them to the old house they once lived, in the suburbs. Apart from an old man living, the house is deserted. The old man allows them to spend a night there. They went there to feel happy amidst their memories, but the past has something else in store.

Awards: Ritubarna Chudgar (Best Short Fiction Film, National Film Award, 2001)

 

Meena Jha

Direction: Anjalika Sharma

Camera: Amal Neerad C.R

Edit: Basudev Chakraborty

Sound: Mahua Maitra

The film is about two girls. Meena and Ayesha are teenagers who study in a convent school. They are grown together even though their dreams, realities and social setup are totally different from each other. Calcutta is the backdrop of this unlikely relationship. The girl struggle to live out the first adult relationship of their lives. Ayesha is easily bored and looks for constant stimulation. She likes to live in a dream world, nightmares even. In Meena, she finds a listener one who believes all her tales blindly, one who dreams and lives through her stories. The film is a collage of shared experiences, memories, dreams and realities, held together by an un-predictable non-linear structure

 

Awards: Anjalika Sharma (Best Debut Film of the Director, National Film Award, 2001)

Amal Neerad C. R. (Special Mention for 48th National Film Awards)