City lad bags Golden Beaver at science film fest
Lucknow boy Aditya, 17, has again won the Golden Beaver Award for his documentary on psychopaths at the recently concluded 7th National Science Film Festival held at Birla Industrial and Technological Museums, Kolkata. Last year, his documentary ‘Ants: A Tiny Creature’ won him the same award.
“It is a thrilling experience to win an award for two years in a row,” said Aditya who received ₹50,000 prize money for winning the award in category D (film made by school students).
Aditya, a Class 12 student of Manipal Public School said, “The documentary titled ‘Brain’s Fault’ explains how physical and biological condition of the brain makes a person criminal before his birth. These people are called psychopaths in medical science.”
The increasing crime rate in society motivated him to make this movie. “My documentary is an attempt to explain the reason behind psychopaths,” he said.
“My friend Tanmeet Singh and Dhananjay Singh Chauhan helped me a lot. Narration was by Tanmeet Singh. Actors in this movie were my friends Lokendra Tiwari, Pratimesh, Shubham Singh, Harshit Pandey, Prashant Srivastav, Abhishek Singh and others,” said Aditya who wants to be a science filmmaker as he loves both science and films.
Though the 17-year-old got help and support from his friends for this documentary, the he himself managed the entire cinematography and editing. To cut the long story short, the documentary was produced, directed and shot by Aditya with an SLR camera. The total duration of the film is 7 minutes 47 seconds.
Organised by Vigyan Prasar, an autonomous institution under department of science and technology, Government of India, the film festival was held between February 14 and 18. The entries were selected by a jury of eminent filmmakers, professors, scientists, media professionals like Prof Partha S Ghose, former chairman of Satyajit Ray Film and TV Institute, Kolkata (chairman national jury), Reena Mohan, eminent filmmaker, award winning filmmakers Arun Chadha and literary luminaries.
The award was presented by Bollywood film director Madhur Bhandarkar. However, Aditya could not attend the event because his CBSE Class 12 examination is scheduled to begin from next month.
“Aditya has made us proud by winning this coveted award. He does amazing work each time and is very talented, enthusiastic and dedicated. We wish him all the best for his future endeavours,” said Anupama Shukla, principal of Manipal Public School.