Lucknowite wins black lady for his short film, Ankahi

The Filmfare award winner, Diwakar Bhattacharya debuted as a director with his short film, Suno- The Unspoken. The amateur writer-director has once again done the city proud by winning one more black lady for his second short film, Ankahi in the horror category. Diwakar, who hails from Lucknow, came up with the story during the lockdown when he was down with Covid.

Ankahi- a short film

Before entering the world of cinema in 2019, Bhattacharya was a corporate guy. "We shot Ankahi with a crew of only five members in an apartment when the Covid was at its peak," says Diwakar, adding, "The short film is a mixture of many stories, emotions and psychological consequences which Covid brought in. I have taken the inspiration for this story from the problems people were facing mentally in their personal lives during the lockdown. The story revolves around the two characters sharing the turmoil of the pandemic over a video call. One is an unmarried blogger and the other is a housewife played by Tulika Banerjee and Neha Lal respectively, which finishes off on a horror note. The short film depicts the issues of domestic violence and the frustration caused by the loss of jobs and the downfall of businesses. The second thing it speaks about is that when you go through something bad, you should always talk to people. The housewife didn't share her pain with anyone and continued to suffer alone which made her take drastic steps."

Diwakar Bhattacharya

Diwakar believes there is a bright future for short films as the market is also growing from commercial movies to short films now. The director who is going to start with his first OTT film called Cafe Stories shared his feelings on winning two Filmfares. He said, " Being a Lucknowite and winning two Filmfare Awards is a big achievement for me. For once you can win by fluke but when it happens twice, you know you have accomplished something great only because of your hard work."
-Amina Ashraf