A city girl has got the gold medal in the Dreampitch section of the Young Director Award (YDA) at Cannes Lion for her film pitch.
Cannes Lion 2025, which took place from June 16 to 20 on the French Riviera, is regarded as the Oscars of the advertising and communication fraternity.
While YDA is for films of varying genres, the Dreampitch section is for pitches of works-in-progress.
Spriha Das, a 22-year-old from Tollygunge, submitted a pitch for her film Shaitaan, about an old market downing shutters faced with the onslaught of e-commerce in a post-Covid metropolis.
“There is a British era market in Bengaluru called Russell Market, where shops, run by families for four to five generations, are being forced to shut down. The film will be a social satire shown through a child’s lens — how an eight-year-old visiting the market with his grandmother sees the fall of a historic market,” said Spriha.
The film will be an 8-10 minute 2D animation.
Spriha graduated in animation from Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Bengaluru last year. She submitted the pitch deck with a logline, capturing the idea in a couple of sentences, and a 100-word synopsis in March. The result was declared at the event in Cannes and posted online on Thursday.
“She was one of eight shortlisted directors from across the globe, the organisers told us in a June 6 email. She was invited to attend. If she could not and her film won, they would ship her the trophy, they wrote,” said her mother Rumpa Das, who happens to be the principal of Maheshtala College.
“There was no way she could get a visa that soon, although my son stays in Paris,” she rued.
Spriha said the film would take about a year to make. “My core production team includes two of my batchmates — Treena Gupta and Rohan Mahesh. We will create the posters next. We are trying to meet and onboard producers. This recognition will help build my film’s credibility.”
This is not the first international exposure for Spriha, who has been making films since her second year of college.
Her first film Khichik! got an honourable mention at New York’s Student World Impact Film Festival in 2022.