City girl wins Student Oscar Award

An English film edited by Bengaluru girl, Anisha Acharya, has bagged gold at the Student Academy or the Student Oscar Award, 2015, in the ‘narrative’ category. The awards were announced a few days back.

“Day One” is a 25-minute film made by a team of students from the American Film Institute (AFI) in 2014, where Anisha studied. The movie, made as part of their curriculum, is inspired by the true story of an interpreter for the US Army who is forced to deliver the child of an enemy bomb-maker on her first day in Afghanistan.

Anisha did her schooling at Sri Aurobindo Memorial School, Banashankari, and her junior college at Christ Pre-University College, Hosur Road, before pursuing her bachelors degree in accessory design from the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), HSR Layout. She then went on to study film editing at the AFI, Los Angeles, USA, between 2012 to 2014.

Anisha’s AFI thesis film, “Vlado”, was also an official selection at the Dances with Films Festival, 2015, and she has also worked on a number of other short films.

Besides the Student Oscars Award, “Day One” has also received the 2015 BAFTA US Student awards, College Television Award, 2015, (Emmy for students) and was also adjudged finalist at the Cannes Emerging Filmmaker Showcase, 2015, besides winning various other awards at a number of international film festivals.

Anisha is the granddaughter of late C K Nagaraja Rao, noted writer, dramatist and recipient of Moortidevi award. Anisha’s parents, Dr Jagabandhu Acharya and Shambhavi Acharya, are social development professionals and reside in Electronics City.

“Anisha was very creative as a child and would involve herself in various interesting projects. It’s a moment of pride for us all,” said Dr Savipriya Raghavendra, Anisha’s cousin.

The Student Academy award is instituted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that gives out the annual Academy awards, more populary known as the Oscar awards. Gold, silver and bronze awards are presented in five categories, namely alternative, animation, documentary, foreign and narrative. This year there were as many as 1,686 films from 282 US and 93 non-US colleges and universities.