HA Block has produced a National Award winner. Twenty-eight-year-old Moumita Roy earlier this month was awarded the National Film Award for Best Non-Feature Film Audiography for Edpa Kana, a film in the Kurukh language of Jharkhand.
“I wasn’t expecting this award. In fact, I had forgotten that the film had been sent for the National Awards,” laughs the fresh pass-out of Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI). The winning film was the final year diploma project that she and three of her classmates had to make as part of their course and Moumita was handling the audiography.
“Audiography includes all the dialogues, music and sounds that we hear while watching a film. One has to get the right balance between them,” says Moumita. The director of the film was her classmate Niranjan Kujur who belongs to Jharkhand’s Oraon tribe and speaks Kurukh. The film is about a tribal boy of the Sarna faith who falls in love with a tribal girl who follows Christianity.
“Most of the film was shot in Jharkhand and the actors were Niranjan’s relatives. We were using sync sound (in which dialogues do not get dubbed over in the studio later) so mics had to be hidden in the actors’ clothing. We were shooting in the winter of 2014 and the mics kept picking up rustle of the actors’ winter garments,” recalls the HA 36 resident.
The 26-minute-long Edpa Kana has been making a mark in the festival circuit too but the National Award is the icing on the cake. “The ceremony in New Delhi was very formal. I received the award from the President and was off stage in a few seconds. There was a lot of security protocol too so I didn’t get to speak to other award recipients but I got to meet Sanjay Kurien, who won best audiography (location sound recordist) for the film Talvar.
Her parents watched the ceremony from the audience. “Our daughter. is good at everything she does,” says mother Sikha.
“I have been receiving calls and Facebook messages from relatives, neighbours and even school friends I had lost touch with,” she laughs.
She also won Rs 50,000 with which she plans to buy sound equipment. “As of now I’m working on a freelance basis in Calcutta. Let’s see what happens next,” she smiles.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Front Page> Salt Lake> Story / by Brinda Sarkar / Friday – May 20th, 2016