Bhubaneswar, Nov. 2: City-based filmmaker Piyush Puty's short documentary, Amdavad Ma Famous (Famous in Ahmedabad in Gujarati), has bagged the top honour in the Let's Face the Shorts category at the Budapest International Documentary Festival.

Puty is the co-producer and cinematographer of the 30-minute documentary that captures the "madness" of the people about the kite festival in Ahmedabad.

"People of all age groups in Ahmedabad appear philosophical, but during the kite festival they behave like kids. It is very interesting to observe the city during the kite festival. We have captured the mood in the documentary. The cinematography was also praised by the jury at the Budapest festival," said the 28-year-old film-maker.

The Physics honours graduate from BJB College started making documentary films in 2012 when he made a short film on the ups and downs in the making of the Hindi film, Lootera. The idea of this Bollywood film was conceived in 2006, but the film actually went on the sets in 2011.

"In my documentary on Lootera, I did a profile of the film and what were the factors leading to its delay and other interesting things. After that, I got involved in the making of a film on legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar's last 20 days in international cricket. I was the cinematographer of the entire 20-days' shoot, during which we shot inside the cricketer's house, his hotel room, stadium, dressing room and other places. The Sachin Project, as the documentary is called, is still in the making," he said.

Puty was associated with a team of filmmakers, whose mentor was Hardik Mehta. Mehta, who is the director of Amdavad Ma Famous, is also directing The Sachin Project.

"Mehta knew me from the days of Lootera, where he was the script supervisor. He is also the associate director of well-known films like Queen and Shaandaar. In January 2014, I visited Ahmedabad with Mehta and got the idea for the documentary. The work started in January 2015 and concluded in August. The documentary went to the Budapest competition in the last week of September."

After the Budapest success, the team is now trying to take the film to other major film festivals. "We have been selected to take part at the Aljazeera Documentary Film Festival in the last week of this month and then at the Mumbai International Film Festival in January," he said.

Puty studied at DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur. After graduating from BJB College, he did a course in film appreciation from the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, and then settled in Mumbai.

He was associated with films like Wake Up Sid, Don 2 and Agneepath. He has also been associated with the making of over 50 advertisement films.

The filmmaker is currently working on a project, which is very close to his heart. "Hockey is very popular in Odisha. The state has produced many national and international players. I am making a documentary film titled The Tribal Scoop on the subject. The trailer of the documentary will be ready within a fortnight."

He is the son of award-winning Odia filmmaker Gadadhar Puty.