Mohammed Naseeh and Lasya Priya, students of Integrated Masters (IMA) won the awards for Best Script and Best Short Story respectively, in the HARMONY Virtual Film Festival, conducted by University of Management (VUM). Bulgaria. The Film Festival featured the nominations for Best Short Film, Best Script and Best Visual Effect. The Short Films from various universities from Asian countries (who are part of the HARMONY project) participated in the festival. The short films featured various themes on diversity pertaining to student and campus lives. The winners were selected through a combination of voting through social media and a Jury of experts.
Mohammed Naseeh whose short film –The Paper Plane, was judged as the best in the category for best script. The film, The Paper Plane highlighted an idea that ‘irrespective of where we live on this earth, we need to come together to build the world together’. Film sends out a message that empathy and listening to each other is important for the world to become a better place. The film, The Seed, directed by Lasya Priya depicts the need to bring together people of different countries and unite them in the quest for ecological sustainability. The film gently nudges that each one of us, irrespective of which continent we belong to, have a responsibility towards the environment.
Mohammed and Lasya Priya, in their acceptance speech, highlighted the collective work their team put in making the films. They along with N Sanjeevani, also a student from IMA attended a three-week Boot Camp in Varna, Bulgaria in July 2023. Prof. N Siva Kumar congratulated the UoH students for winning the awards and opined that the laurels brought by students to our university at an international level competition will motivate the rest of the student community. He further pointed out that the winning of awards by students is a key milestone in the journey the UoH Team had with HARMONY team internationally. The Project HARMONY allowed the team at UoH to establish infrastructure and develop the Friends Tea House in the SIP building that is already in use for Harmony project related activities.
The UoH team while congratulating the students, also thanked Prof. Vasuki Belavadi, for all the technical and creative support. Ms. Christina Armutlieva from Varna University of Management (VUM) coordinated the Virtual Film Fest. The HARMONY project involving universities from Europe and Asia is coordinated by Dr. Rafael de Miguel González, University of Zaragoza, Spain. The videos of Short Films/Digital Stories can be viewed at HARMONY YouTube channel.