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Class 12th student’s film on cyclists saving the environment wins Italian film award
A student of Study Hall School, Lucknow, Reyan Siddiqui’s The Wind Walkers won two awards at Italian international film festival Cinemi Cinema
Lucknow: Reyan Siddiqui, 17, is not just a movie buff, he loves filmmaking as well and dreams of making it big in Bollywood someday. He’s fascinated by cameras as well.
A student of Study Hall School, Lucknow, Siddiqui took the first step towards fulfilling his dream when his short documentary of 4.25 minutes, The Wind Walkers, bagged two awards at the prestigious international short film festival, Cinemi Cinema, in Arezzo, Italy.
Siddiqui is a keen learner, who simply loves watching films. As far as film production is concerned, he is self- taught although his father also runs a film production house in Lucknow. He spent around 15 days on the project, roughly eight hours a day
Cinemi Cinema, the festival, was introduced to Siddiqui by his class teacher. He got a web link of the festival and uploaded his film on its website and also communicated with the film fest organisers through emails.
Siddiqui’s documentary, which bagged the award for best film and best direction, highlights how Lucknow’s air is getting polluted by an ever-increasing number of four-wheelers driven by the affluent. On the other hand, a cyclist who might not be very rich contributes a great deal to keeping the air clean, despite risking his life driving his environment-friendly bicycle on roads made dangerous with high-speed cars.
The movie has voice-over in Hindi with subtitles in English.
Shot in old parts of Lucknow and new areas, the movie highlights the importance of bicycles in this modern age of luxury cars. The concluding message of the documentary is: Fuel might not last but bicycles will always remain.
Much impressed by the movie, the organisers of the Italian film festival have also asked Siddiqui to send his movie to the Edinburgh Short Film Festival in Scotland.
The movie’s selection at the prestigious short film festival was a pleasant surprise for the young schoolboy. He got an email from the organisers of the film fest, informing him about the movie bagging the best film and best director award and a gift voucher for 300 euros.
“It was a pleasant surprise for me. I knew the movie was good but I was not expecting the award, that too in two segments,” Siddiqui said. He broke the news about the award to his class teacher Suparna Chatterjee and school principal Shalini Sinha shared it with the entire school in the morning assembly. “That was a big moment for me,” he said.
Sharing future plans, Siddiqui said, “I want to pursue a degree course from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad. If everything goes as planned, then I will go for a specialised course in filmmaking from an international institute after passing out from NID.”
