SRFTI girl’s film on Bafta shortlist

KOLKATA: During the second phase of lockdown in Kolkata, a 14th batch student of Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI) decided to negotiate the confinement blues creatively. She spent 11 months locked in a black room to make a four-minute-long animation film which has now been shortlisted for the prestigious 2023 Yugo BAFTA Students Awards. Suchana Saha’s ‘Priyo Ami’ is the only student project from India to have made it to this list that was drawn up by a review panel of 140 BAFTA members.
The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Film Awards is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.BAFTA has announced 79 projects shortlisted for the 2023 Yugo BAFTA Students Awards. This year’s Yugo BAFTA Student Awards has received 754 submissions from 103 schools across 30 countries.
Suchana’s ‘Priyo Ami (Dear Me)’ is about a woman who is in search of herself. She discovers unpleasant truths, childhood traumas and deals with her fragmented reality. It is a journey of discoveries about loneliness, madness and emptiness within herself and how she comes to term with it. Her previous film, ‘Maa Tuki’, is a story about a breast cancer survivor. Suchana made it after her mother was recovering from her treatment. During the peak of lockdown, Suchana was initially numb. Then vaccines hit the market and she saw rays of hope for survival. Slowly, she could process the numbness and write about it. “During my recovery from trauma, I synthesized it through my films. This process of working alone inside a black room for 11 months after the second lockdown was not a very happy journey. It was quite tough to navigate this loneliness. ‘Priyo Ami’ is the letter I wrote to myself. It actually worked like a therapy for me,” said Suchana from Annecy in France where she is there to present his film at the International Animation festival and Animafest Zagreb. While Shireen Ghosh did the sound design for her film, Sourabh Saha was in charge of sound mixing.
Wishing her success, A.S. Krishnaswamy, head of SRFTI’s animation department, said, “We are extremely happy with the nomination. Just being in the shortlist of BAFTA is extremely prestigious and a huge achievement for any animation cinema student of our country.” Suchana chose the tough ‘Paint on Glass’ process to make this animation. “She is an exceptional student and spent the entire corona period locked in a room to do this work. Every slide is a painting on its own merit. What is sad about this process is, every time she drew a new painting, the previous one had to be erased to make way for the next one. The importance is on story-telling. That takes the mantle more than the technique of animation.”
‘Priyo Ami’ has already been awarded at the NFDC Film Bazaar. It was officially selected for the Busan International Film Festival, International Film Festival of Rotterdam 2023 in Netherlands, International Film Festival Fribourg in Switzerland and Dresden Filmfest in Germany, Munich FilmSchool Fest in Germany, O!PLA Festival of Polish Animation, VGIK International Student Film Festival in Russia, Festivales de Buenos Aires in Argentina, Zagreb Animafest in Croatia, Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France and International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala.
About 2023 Yugo BAFTA Students Awards:
1. BAFTA has announced 79 projects shortlisted for the 2023 Yugo BAFTA Students Awards.
2. This year’s Yugo BAFTA Student Awards has received 754 submissions from 103 schools across 30 countries.
3. The shortlisted works will compete for nominations in Animation, Documentary, Live Action, Games, and Immersive.
4. The finalists for these categories will be announced on July 7.
5. All students on the shortlist are given the opportunity to apply for and join BAFTA’s talent development programmes including year-round access to in-person and online events.