Winning Bid

Lalwani,speaking from the US,where she is now working on a script for a Los Angeles-based filmmaker,is naturally elated. “The screening took place on August 14 and the jury awards were to be announced the following day. However,when the committee held back the results of the audience choice category at the award ceremony,we thought we haven’t won. We consoled ourselves that the best of films from top notch directors usually find their way into RIFF,” she reminisces. “It was only in the evening when other filmmakers whose films were competing with mine started mailing me congratulatory messages that we came to know of our win,”she says.

The 18-minute film is the story of a man who believes he is the German dictator Adolf Hitler and has locked himself up as he counters his emotions and seeks redemption. “It’s more like a fly-on-the-wall account and a character study of the man over ten days — the humane fashion in which he deals with his emotions,his introspection as he realises the number of people he has killed and his longing for redemption,” explains the filmmaker.

Incidentally,the film,made two years ago in the US,was the thesis project for Lalwani’s course at the New York Film Academy and she hadn’t expected it to receive such a response. “The film was being screened alongside two other movies,so we were pleasantly surprised to realise that most of the audience present had arrived to watch my movie,” she says. The question-and-answer round following the screening confirmed this when the attendees,many of who were established names in the West,directed relevant queries at her.