Odia girl Lipika Singh Darai has been selected for the 60th National Film Award for 2012 in Best Debut Film of a Director, non-feature film category. This was announced by the Directorate of Film Festivals on Monday.
The award will be conferred on Lipika for her film “Eka Gachha, Eka Manisa, Eka Samudra” (A Tree, a Man, a Sea). She would receive `75,000 and Rajat Kamal trophy as part of the award.
A committee comprising three juries __ Basu Chatterjee for Feature Films, Aruna Raje for Non-Feature Films and Swapan Mullick for Best Writing on Cinema __ selected the awardees.
“Eka Gachha...” produced by Veena Bhusan Vaid, deals with the memory about a music teacher. “I feel happy because this is my tribute to my Guruji, my music teacher Prafulla Kumar Das from Balasore,” said Baripada-born 29-year-old Lipika. Besides directing the movie, she has done sound editing and voice mixing for the movie.
A product of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Lipika had earlier received the 57th National Award for Best Sound Recording and Mixing, for a film titled ‘Gaarud’ that she did as her college project. ‘Gaarud’ gives a glimpse into the lives of people who walk in and out of a single hotel room close to the railway station.
Lipika was in charge of creating the mood of a railway station and the accompanying hustle-bustle. “We had to capture sync sound. Since the film had no cuts, only track shots, and the story took place in that single room over several days, capturing the variation in the sounds, moods and ambience was an interesting learning experience for me,” she said.
Lipika is currently working on research and documentation of traditional folk music and puppet theatre of Odisha.