City youth shines at international film festival

BAREILLY: In 2013, a young filmmaker from the city, was lauded on the international film map because of her film ‘Bombay Talkies’. Now, another young filmmaker, Akshat Ajay Sharma, has made the city pround as his film ‘Zindagani- a story untold’ will be screened at 10th My Hero International Film Festival in California on November 22 .
The film revolves around the life of a common man who, undeterred by his handicap, is willing to put in hard labour to earn his bread rather than taking to begging.
Talking to TOI, Akshat, who completed his masters in film making from Annapurna International School of Film and Media, Hyedrabad said, “The film has been nominated in ‘overcoming obstacles’ category and has already bagged the Bronze medal at the 10th My Hero International film festival, California. The whole idea behind the movie was to bring the common man in focus as real life is very different from what is portrayed on the silver screen.”
The movie conveys the entire story in less than three minutes. “A theme, ‘Apne Dum Par’, was assigned to us at the 48 Hours Inter school film making competition recently. The whole idea behind choosing ‘my hero’ was to have a person who sends a message to the world.”
Speaking about his upcoming projects, Akshat adds, “Some of my upcoming projects will be continuation of the movies which I have already directed and talks are on with a few producers. This time round the flicks will be of a longer duration.”
On other hand, father of young director, Ajay Sharma, chief proctor at Bareilly College and faculty member at the Military Science department, said, “He was selected for Indian Air Force (IAF) but as we lost our other son few years back all of sudden, we were mentally not prepared for him to join IAF. However later when he expressed his desire to study film making we were ready for the same.”