Mainstream recognition for short films

National award winning actor Manoj Bajpayee bagged the Filmfare Short Film Awards’ Best Actor for “Taandav” recently. "It's actually an honour for immensely gifted director Devashish Makhija and muvizz.com. I am so happy that Filmfare thought of recognising the value of short films as a creative platform to showcase ones potential," Manoj, after the announcement of the winners.

Meanwhile, “Chutney”, “Khamakha” and “Matitali Kusti” bagged the awards in Best Film (Fiction), People's Choice Award for Best Film and Best Film (Non-Fiction) categories respectively in ‘Short Films’.

Among the 45 films that were nominated, several had prominent names from Bollywood attached - be it Sunny Leone ("11 minutes"), Huma Qureshi and Gauhar Khan ("Ek Dopahar") to Manoj Bajpayee ("Ouch" and "Taandav"), Nimrat Kaur ("Elaychi"), Piyush Mishra ("Kathakaar), Swanand Kirkire ("Toyhouse") among others.

"Matitali Kusti"'s young director Prantik Vivek Deshmukh said: "Winning a Filmfare Award at the age of 24 is a dream come true for an aspiring filmmaker like me. This is beyond my imagination. I want to graduate to making feature length films some day and the short film format definitely acts as a bridge towards that."

Talking about "Khamakha", director Aarti S Bagdi said: "'Khamakha' as an idea came to me because of my husband Arun, when he mentioned how you end up judging people during your travels by the way they talk, or their language or their clothes. Everything that is so external. I decided to stress on a Pride and Prejudice on Languages."

With the short film is getting more appreciation by the mainstream actors and influential Bollywood film personalities, Bagdi said: "Short films are the simplest way to discover your own voice. With the revered and extremely loved Filmfare coming out and recognizing shorts in such a grand way, it's going to open up a talent flood that will feel extremely liberating!"