Virtual Reality

Firsts are always special. “But when they get you world wide acclaim,they become memorable,” chorus city-based animators Avi Sidhu,Navneet Kinger and Navdeep. The trio’s first attempt at a short animated film ‘The Eyes of Silence’ has bagged them not just five international awards but screenings at the just-held Festival de Cannes 2009 under the category ‘Showcase for Emerging Filmmakers’. Based on the theme of terrorism,the film touches upon the human emotions set in a modern world where hate and war for religion rages. “The emphasis has been to depict the underlying sensitivity in a very critical situation and how human values and fervor triumph over the objectives for bloodshed,” explains Avi as he shows us a clip where the contrast of civilizations forms the backdrop and the story focuses on an introspecting terrorist,who is an explosives expert and has been given a mission to achieve.

“The movie tries to drive the point that violence spawns violence and it leads to a chain reaction in the simplest of fashion,” they add. Probably that’s the reason the five-minutes-and-seven-seconds-long animation film got selected for screening at over 11 film festivals across the world,including those held in the USA,France,Russia,Germany,Italy and Egypt. What’s more,the movie has so far won five awards internationally,including the highly coveted Accolade Award of Merit in Animation at The Accolade 2009. Then there’s the Best Animation Award at the Rockport Film Festival 2008,Aloha Award for Excellence in filmmaking at the Honolulu International Film Festival 2009,Silver Award for Best Animation at the Lake Arrowhead Film Festival 2009 and Best Drama & Animation at the Firstglance Hollywood Film Festival 2009.

Also seen as a winning point for the movie is it photorealistic life-like animation that has been created on a low budget. “The film was made using only two computers and we cut cost wherever possible,” tells Avi,who along with his partners completed engineering from SSIET Derabassi and set up their own firm Virtual Realms Productions. “We’ve made architectural walk-throughs,done outsourcing work and designed in the past,but making a movie was long due,” Avi tells us they are self-taught animators and completed the movie by putting in an average of two hours of work every day. Next,they are working on an animation film based on the legendary Maharaja Ranjit Singh. But if you are looking to catch glimpses of ‘The Eyes of Silence’ then log on to http://www.virtualrealmsproductions.com.