Six girls from the city have made an animation film that has grabbed top honours at an international film festival in the US. Namrata Tipirneni, Disha Seth, Tushna Baria, Deeksha Aurangabad, Preethi Narapareddy and Meghna Chinta, who were all students of Meridian School, Hyderabad when they made the film, were pleasantly surprised to see their three-minute animation film ‘I am Beautiful’ win the first prize at the recent Streets Global Film Festival, New York. Hosted by The Peacemaker Corps Association at New York, these young filmmakers who won the ‘Peacemaker Corps 2016 Peace’ were invited to tour the UN as well.
The group had made the film in just five days, as part of a grading workshop organised by the Chinh Early Education group earlier this year. The latter sensed the content’s universal appeal and nominated it for the fest, to be among many global submissions, with the final list numbering close to 60. ‘I am Beautiful’ deals with how the external beauty of a woman is always governed by societal obligations. The film touches upon aspects including touched eye-brows, waxing and how society reacts to it regularly.
An excited Namrata, who’s now pursuing her Bachelors in Mass Communication at St. Francis College, says “External beauty as an idea really interested us and we all knew that feminism was a topic of discussion for many. We worked on the film during our class-hours. We had to make nearly 30 drawings for each frame. Scripting for an animation film was a true challenge.” The girls later underwent a tutorial where they learnt to manage the technicalities assisted by the Chinh group.
“It was a special moment to be in the UN. We shared the stage with people younger than us from all around the world, saw where we stood on a global level. The attention felt good,” add Disha, Tushna and Preethi who were part of the New York trip. The group was gifted a camera on the occasion. “The moment felt better because of the constraints with which we made it there. Our ideas got better when there were limited time and resources on hand,” they add.
Sharing the stage with their global counterparts had them nervous as well as excited. The parents of the teenagers only knew of the film as a school activity and were immensely supportive of their efforts. “Though I have ideas of making a career in the media, I may even consider films in the future,” Namrata hints. They all hope to collaborate for a similar effort in the future as well.
