September 4, 2018

Masterclass with Cyrus Dastur

What makes a special film special? Asked Mr. Cyrus Dastur who is a famous short films specialist from Mumbai. Mr. Dastur heads Shamiana, an offbeat film club which celebrates shorts and conducts workshops on them across the industry and academia. He was speaking to the students of Unitedworld School of Liberal Arts and Mass Communications (USLM). USLM invited him over for a three-day long masterclass with Mass Communications and Liberal Arts students on the joys of film appreciation. The first session was scheduled for 4th September 2018.

He was showing an Oscar winner Hungarian short to the students. Sing. That was the name. It bagged the Oscar for 2017. The movie is about a bunch of primary school students. A rude music teacher was teaching the team how to sing in a choir. She made many children participate but allowed only the tuneful to sing. The rest had only to mime. The students did not like that. But they were too young and scared to protest. What happened next is a small miracle. That is the reason the movie had won the Oscars. What the students finally did showed that their spine was straight and that they could stand up for one another and for integrity. This quality, Dastur said, appealed to the jury and the audience alike.

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