Irish Varsity Scholarship For Budding Filmmaker

Meera Shankar’s parents are organic chemists and her brother is an engineer. But she found her calling in the area of filmmaking. Meera just turned 24 and celebrations were enhanced by a dream Irish government scholarship to pursue her interest in filmmaking.

Meera is one of only two Indian students to have won the Government of Ireland scholarship for pursuing a Master’s programme at the University College Cork (UCC). The scholarship will take care of full tuition fees and comes with a completely tax-free €10,000 stipend for an entire year, which would pretty much cover her cost of living.

“It is an extremely generous amount. Every student fears raising loans, but this leaves no room for fear,” Meera says. An aspiring filmmaker, Meera will study film studies at UCC. “I want to make films and want to see myself making a feature film. For me, filmmaking is essentially an exciting field, about how people can come together and create beautiful stories and the feeling they evoke.”

The course, she says, would help get into the details of filmmaking and break down concepts. “Basically, it will be about being different and yet widely understood,” she says. This is not her first engagement with formal film studies, she has been to Prague Film School, Czech Republic, for a diploma.

Meera came across some Irish writers’ works that she wants to adapt to the cinema screen. One of the writers is a professor at University of Dublin. “After my course, I will try to figure out how to get it produced,” she says. UCC was her choice over universities in UK, Australia and Europe because of the “feasibility” factor.

Bharath@newindianexpress.com