The 3rd Day of the Malhaar Virtual Video Film Festival Was Nothing Less Than a 10!

Following in the footsteps of the events of Day 2 of the Malhaar Film Festival, the 3rd day also turned out to be a hit show, with the guests of the evening the extraordinary writer and director, Priyanka Bannerjee and Kimani Okearah, the CEO of Let Me Out productions. 

The event commenced at 7:30 PM IST on the 21st of August. The phenomenal and extremely talented Priyanka Bannerjee, who started her career in the theatre before even discovering her passion for movies. She learned the art of filmmaking without attending any film school. She established her own project about which she was absolutely enthusiastic through her vision as a self-made artist. She gradually began working with various production studios after devoting herself to the craft of creating narratives on screen. 

She was still on the road with her career and worked on a couple of short films like “Commas”, as well as assuming the lead on many other video advertising and narrative-based projects. It was until she moved on to big projects like the short film “Devi”, which won a Filmfare award for the best short film. 

She shared her story with the audience about her journey as a filmmaker in the process walkthrough – What they don’t teach you at film school: Introducing characters and settings. 

Before reaching the pinnacle of her career, Priyanka narrated the ups and downs of her life’s story saying” My most significant memory in my journey as a screenwriter was definitely my experience of creating the short film ‘Commas’. Commas was supposed to be financed by a producer, but they pulled out at the last moment, so I had to self-finance the whole project. It could have been so much tougher, since this script required 13 strong characters, and I didn’t have the money to pay anyone of them. So many things actually did go wrong, like when we had completely miscalculated the time frame of shooting. Since the setting was a real restaurant, actual customers of the restaurant started filing in. But I was fortunate that I worked with such classy actors, who, despite my age and inexperience at that time, showed faith in my script, and were ready to film despite all the problems. This experience has actually instilled in me a permanent habit of allocating 10 minutes before the start of the shoot, specifically to panic.”

Priyanka reflected on the apparent difference in her approach until today as she recounted her experience filming for the short film ‘Devi.’ She said” “When we were making Devi, it was the first time I was working on a project of this large a scale. I mean for the first time I saw an actual vanity van parked on the set of one of my films.”

On the same note, she further added,” It was to be expected, since I may be a novice Director, but if there is someone like Kajol a member of your team, you have to operate in a standard way. You cannot remain a doe-eyed film school student shooting a student project. Niranjan Iyenger, one of the country’s most legendary Screenwriters, was dubious about me. His concerns were mostly about a new Director directing Kajol. But I was adamant- I’ll only work with this production if I get to direct it. My determination was such that even Iyengar, who had doubts about me, would guide me and help me the most, whenever I needed it.”

Her down-to-earth nature and giving a personal touch to each conversation is what made her more connected to the audience and made her session at the Malhaar Film Festival an evening to remember. 

After half an hour of pause, the event was back to its game with the next guest of the evening, Kimani Okearah, an NFT entrepreneur aiming to construct a new solution in the Web3 filmmaking framework in order to enable creators to have more earnings. 

The major filmmaker and photojournalist covering major American basketball leagues eventually entered the NFT game after becoming agitated with the industry’s massive pay delay problems. In 2007, he created the Let Me Out Productions in the small Californian town of Foresthill with the purpose of generating creator equity in the worldwide film and television production business.

Kimani Okearah made the most of the Malhaar Film Festival platform by presenting a session on Creator Development in Web3 Filmmaking. 

The session began at 9:00 PM IST and lasted until 10:00 PM IST. 

Okearah astonished the audience with his great talents and expertise during the entire session, providing extremely educational insights about Web3 Filmmaking.

The outstanding jury panel of this year’s film festival consists of big screen artists like Adil Husain (national award-winning Indian actor), Rajit Kapoor (Indian actor and director), Sameer Nair (CEO of Applause Entertainment Limited) and Neeraj Kabi (self-taught Indian actor and producer), who are going to be an eminent part of the ten-day film festival.

The Malhaar Film Festival began on August 19th, 2022 with a grand opening ceremony and masterclass by some renowned artists and will continue till August 28th, 2022. Participate in this magnificent event to avoid regretting skipping out on a wonderful experience!

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