An ancient fiddle-like tribal instrument on the verge of extinction is making melody on screen.

Banam, a film on a string instrument used by the Santhal community as an accompaniment to its songs, has won the first prize in the student category at the Samvaad National Short Film Festival organised by Tata Steel.

The 25-minute eponymous documentary has been made by the post-graduate students of mass communication at Karim City College.

Director duo Vikash Kumar and Prakash Keshri gave tough competition to 80 other entrants who had to submit their films online by October 10. The films were screened for the jury at the Tribal Culture Centre in Sonari on October 19 and 22.

“Initially, we thought of taking up some other issue because instruments are a common subject. But then we realised banam is a rare instrument on its way to extinction and a film could be a powerful medium to document it,” Vikash said.

The makers are now planning to introduce some changes suggested by the jury and screen it at other festivals.

“The more we screen it, the more exposure this instrument will get. We wish to make more such films now. The award is a motivation,” Vikash said.

The other members of the Banam team are producer Pragya Singh and editor Kunal Dey. The research team include theatre activist Shivlal Sagar, filmmaker Bapi Murmu and the batchmate of the director duo Tanmay Singh Solanki.

“These talented students have made the college and the city proud. They belong to the non-tribal community, but have still taken interest in preserving the tribal culture,” principal of Karim City

College Mohammad

Zakaria said.

The second prize was bagged by Hai Pase, a film made by students of Birsa College in Khunti, while the winner of the third prize Forbidden Fruit was made by the students of Srishti Institute

of Art, Design and Technology in Bangalore.

The results were communicated to the winners through email.