The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne is delighted to announce the winners of the 2014 Western Union Short Film Competition. The Australian winner is Donald Percy for MAKEOVER; The Indian Winner is Abhishek Verma for CHASNI.
The continent-jumping Western Union short film competition aims to discover the future Baz Luhrmann and Rajkumar Hiranis of the film world and to foster ties between the two countries. Applicants were asked to make a short film of less than 10 minutes around the theme Hope. Entrants were judged by Australian film director, Paul Cox and Indian film director Vijay Krishna Acharya.
CHASNI is a 2D hand drawn digital animation which deals with one of the most horrendous and fast growing Indian crimes: acid attacks. The film was made as a student film project under Department of Film Design & animation, Industrial Design Centre IIT Bombay, Mumbai.
MAKEOVER is a colourful cartoon-stylised and slightly twisted romantic comedy that looks at our obsession with retaining a youthful appearance. Horrie, a lonely widower, misses his wife (and dog) and decides it’s time to start dating again. He finds the perfect woman via a singles magazine, but before they meet, undertakes an elaborate and unconventional makeover. Can he keep up the facade, or will he be found out?
Commenting on the winning films, Paul Cox said “The overall technical quality and treatment of subject matter of all the finalists was most impressive. The winning films are delightful, touching and oh so human.”
Nikhil Advani said “MAKEOVER is a humorous take on loneliness and the ridiculous, comic lengths to which we go to trying to fit in, be liked and loved. When all that perhaps we need, is a belief in and acceptance, of ourselves and limitations. CHASNI is a very powerful and poetic film on a subject that is both heart rending and terrifying. In the Indian context, a very important film that needs to be seen. It illustrates wonderful animation and very deft handling."