I knew it was some festival in Berlin. For a guy growing up in Chennai, making shorts on miniDV, and still stuck in the second year of his film school, that was good enough. ‘Some festival in Berlin, dad,” I told my father, “I am going to be nominated as India’s delegate. They call it the Berlinaal or something like that.” I was excited.
Of course the next day when I knew it was not some film festival in Berlin, but the film festival in Berlin, in fact the world, my joy knew no bound.
It was only because the director of the Goethe Institute was a very visionary lady that she had the courage to nominate a 24 year old short filmmaker, in competition with 30-something heavyweights – movie critics, journalist, the elite!
