Joy as film named on Bafta shortlist
‘Dream comes true’ for young director of short story
A film director from Slough has been nominated for a Bafta award.
Myriam Raja, 26, of Manor Park, has made the final five of the British Short Film category for her 20-minute film Azaar, which she wrote and directed.
The story follows a young girl living in a rural Indian village where all the men have gone off to war. Azaar, the only girl in the village who has not yet started her period, is eager to grow up before the men return.
Myriam said: “I’ve always been incredibly interested and drawn to stories about women.
“It’s very much a coming-ofage story about three different generations of women and what the dynamic might be without the men around.”
The film was shot in July
2018 in the desert in Almeria, south-east Spain.
It was put forward for a Bafta award by the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, from which Myriam graduated last year.
The former Baylis Court School student has been working towards a career in filmmaking since the age of 14 with the help of Slough-based Resource Productions.
Myriam nearly missed the news about her nomination for the Bafta award as she was on holiday abroad.
She said: “I was really late finding out because I was in Asia with no wi-fi and it was only when I connected that I got a flurry of congratulations.
“It was a goal that I always had.
“I started filmmaking when I was 14 and a Bafta nomination has always been one of my biggest dreams.”
Myriam, who has also recently worked on the Netflix production of the crime drama series Top Boy, is due to attend the Bafta awards ceremony, hosted by Graham Norton, in London on Sunday, February 2.