Gourav Bhattacharya and Shambuk Biswas aced the Social Responsibility theme.

It was a competition for short films but the list of entries was encouragingly long! iLead organised a short film festival, iLEAD-O-SCOPE, in association with t2 on February 8, where they received more than 75 entries in the student and open categories. Around 30 films were screened on iLead’s Tangra campus.

The students had two themes — Social Responsibility and Preservation of Heritage — while the open category included a third, Training.

“The three themes are very important areas where films can make a lot of difference. Preservation of heritage will help document things that may not be there tomorrow… a community, a craft or a cuisine. Films on social responsibility can inspire a person to take action. As for training, vocational and hands-on, cannot be taught in the classroom but must be shown,” explained Pradip Chopra, chairman, iLead. He added that these were “neglected topics”, which is why the institute chose them to “inspire and motivate people to make films on them”.

(L-R) Aditya Mukherjee, Riddho Roy and Asna Khan won in the Preservation of Heritage category.

Students dwelt on topics like child labour, the caste system, atrocities on women and sanitation in the Social Responsibility section. Gourav Bhattacharya and Shambuk Biswas, Class IX students of La Martiniere for Boys, won a cash prize of Rs 10,000 for their film Stolen Childhood, based on child labour prevalent in Bengal’s stone-crushing factories.

“We started at Shambuk’s house and then went to different parts of Calcutta. We shot in the slum behind Silver Spring and also in south Calcutta. Finally we went to north Bengal and the Sunderbans. The children there did not want to be filmed. We made this film to make people aware of child labour,” said Gourav, the director of Stolen Childhood.

“We were the junior-most in the students category. iLead gave us a good platform and this was the first time that our movie was screened on a projector,” smiled co-winner Shambuk.

For the heritage theme, while many showed Calcutta through their eyes, some students explored subjects like Gaudiya Nritya and the archaeological site at Bangarh. Students from Delhi Public School and Sushila Birla Girls’ School won the first prize for their film A Day In The Life.

“We made this films in just four days by going all around the city. We started from the Maidan and went all over north Calcutta and shot everywhere possible,” said Asna Khan, a Class XI student of Sushila Birla Girls’ School who shot the film.

“We used kites as an allegory representing the dying heritage of Calcutta. The main concept is if you hold it, it flies and if you let go, it falls. Similarly the heritage of Calcutta is fading. We should hold on to it. It’s our city… it’s our paradise,” said Riddho Roy, a Class XI student of DPS Ruby Park, who directed A Day In The Life.

The competition was judged by academician Father George Ponodath, filmmaker Sekhar Das and Kamal Banerjee of Intach.

“iLEAD-O-SCOPE gives a forum to students to showcase their work. It’s very refreshing to see the students’ films, the bold steps that they have taken…. Even technically they were very good. I liked A Day In The Life and Stolen Childhood,” said Father Ponodath.

Shweta Keshri