City school boy’s short film bags award at Italy fest

Reyan Siddiqui, 17, was always fascinated by cameras and movies, making it big in Bollywood his recurring dream.

A student of Study Hall School, Lucknow, Reyan took the first step towards fulfilling his dream when his short documentary of .25 minutes, ‘The Wind Walkers’ bagged two awards at the prestigious international short film festival ‘Cinemi Cinema’ at Arezzo, Italy, on April 3.

Reyan’s movie was awarded for best film and best direction. The movie highlights how the city’s air is getting polluted by an ever increasing number of fourwheelers of affluent people. On the other hand, a poor cyclist is contributing a lot to keep the city’s air clean, despite finding it hard to drive his no fuel vehicle amid high-speed cars.

The movie has a voice-over in Hindi with sub-titles in English.

Shot in both old city and new areas, the movie deftly conveys the message of importance of cycles in this modern age of luxury cars. It ends with a pun that whether fuel lasts or not, cycles will always be there.

Much impressed by the movie, the organisers of the film festival have also asked Reyan to send his movie to the ‘Edinburgh short film festival’, Scotland.

The movie’s selection at the prestigious short film festival was a pleasant surprise for Reyan. He got an email from organisers of the film fest, informing him about the movie bagging best film and best director award and a gift voucher of 300 euro.

“It was a pleasant surprise for me. I knew the movie was good but I was not expecting the award, that too in two segments,” said Reyan. .

Reyan broke the news to his class teacher Suparna Chatterjee and the school principal, Shalini Sinha, shared it with the entire school during the morning assembly.

“It was a big moment for me when the news of my achievement was announced at the morning assembly,” said Reyan.

Sharing his future plan, Reyan said: “I want to pursue a degree course from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. If everything goes as planned, then I will go for a specialised course in film making from an international institute after passing out from the NID.”