Awards & Recognition

Guwahati, April 24, 2017: Apart from earning accolades in both national and international platforms, Hope, a documentary film prepared by the students of NPS International School, Guwahati has also won the coveted Award of Recognition in Documentary Short (Student) section in the IndieFEST Film Awards, California, US recently.

Hope is a story on how the management of NPS International School, Guwahati managed to bring smile to two differently-abled students, Amit and Madhurjya, and their family members as both of them cleared their CBSE Class XII Examinations, 2016 with flying colours. Amit secured 93.2 % marks in Humanities in the examination. Madhurjya also successfully cleared the JEE-Mains 2016 examination.

Earlier, following its screening at the prestigious 2nd National Children’s Film Festival, 2016 in Jaipur, the documentary film was also selected for screening at Sunlight International Film Festival, Germany. The film was also been selected for screening at the 5th Mumbai Shorts International Film Festival-16.

In a communiqué issued by Mr Andrei Mikhailov, Festival Director of Sunlight International Film Festival, Germany to Mr JN Das, Founder and Chairman of NPS International School, Guwahati, Mr Mikhailov said that Hope was one of the 15 best short films, out of 1,000 total entries received, which was screened in Moscow, Russia on July 7, 8, 2017.

The film was also screened in Jaipur City from November 14 -16, 2016. In a bid to expand the market for children’s film and encourage talent in the country, Children’s Film Society India (CFSI), under Government of India, had announced the launch of a three-day National Children’s Film Festival (NCFF) for the first time ever in 2014 in New Delhi.

Sunlight International Film Festival shows an amazing mix of short and feature length films, the best independent films on the festival circuit, before they come to cinema. “We screen films from all over the world and honoring emerging filmmakers from every age, religious, ethnic and cultural perspective. Our mission is to bring worthy filmmakers to a wider attention, and to provide a platform for appreciative and informed discussion of their work,” Mr Mikhailov added.

As part of its Social Responsibility, one of their five Core Values, NPS International School, Guwahati adopted both Amit Saikia and Madhurjya Kashyap till Class XII. Amit, who wants to be an IAS Officer, is physically dysfunctional and needed other’s help to survive and Madhurjya, who wants to be an Engineer, is deaf and dumb. He can do leap reading only.

“Amit is suffering from a disease in which muscles of the body get weaker and weaker and may slowly stop working and there is no treatment of this disease till now. The patient has to do some therapy like speech therapy, physical therapy respiratory therapy etc., for his survival,” said father of Amit, Mr Khairul Haque Saikia. A prominent face among the science stream students of the school, Madhurjya, since he can’t hear and speak, does Lip Reading of teachers while attending the classes.

Meanwhile, Mr JN Das, Founder and Chairman of NPS International School, Guwahati has lauded the effort of the students while making Hope.

Directed by Aakaansha Das, Nashaat (Class X), Sanjana Das and Sukanya Das (both from Class IX), the script of the film was written by Sanjana Das, Bhairavi (Class XI) and Mayank Joshi (Class XI). The Camera for the film was handled by Arnab Sarkar (Class XI), Aftabur Rehman (Class XI), Subham (Class IX), Ashirbad (Class IX) and Jafrina (Class IX). Aakaansha Das rendered the Voice Over of the film. The Editing part of the film was carried out by Nikita Khan (Class XI), Cheanchi Marak (Class XI), Darshana Das (Class XI), Ayaz (Class VIII), Himakshi (Class X), Lenisa (Class XI), Nathalu (Class XI) and Priyankar (Class XI).

Director of the film, Aakaansha Das, has also expressed satisfaction over the performance of the crew members of the film. “We are really happy that Hope has been selected to be screened in various prestigious film festivals. This is just the beginning. We are very much optimistic that Hope will definitely bring good news in various international film festivals in days to come,” she added.