JOIN USIt was a day of celebration and learning at Presidency College, which recently held Vrittanta 2014, its first media fest.
The day-long fest was attended by over 38 colleges from across the City, with the likes of Jain University (Jayanagar), Kristu Jayanti College, Acharya Institute of Technology, CMR Institute, Christ University and even students who came down from Manipal University.
The fest was inaugurated by Pawan Kumar, Kannada film director of the recent Kannada psychological thriller Lucia and veteran Kannada film-maker P Sheshadri. Each of the speakers addressed the students about how to survive in the media world and shared their experiences in Kannada cinema. Some unique events were created for the fest, while the usual ones were popular as well. Reporting, movie review, movie spoof, photography, quiz, flipbook making, treasure hunt, movie promotion and potpourri (dumb charades) were among the various events that one could participate in. Suman, a student of Acharya Institute of Technology, participated in the movie review and potpourri. “There were some technical difficulties but it was a good attempt for a first-time fest. The volunteers were quite helpful and though we didn’t win, the potpourri event was a lot of fun!” she said.
Saurabh Bisht, a participant from Army Institute of Fashion and Design, said that it was the first media fest he had ever attended. “Since I’m a student of design, I wanted to come and try out the flipbook event that caught my attention in the brochure. I’ve never made a flipbook before but it turned out to be easy and fun to play around with. The theme was navarasa (nine emotions), which I interpreted in my own way. But since there were only 12 of us, there wasn’t much competition,” he said.
The organising committee members of the fest said that despite the obstacles along the way, the response was gratifying. “Being a small department, our biggest challenge was getting volunteers to pull this off in two months. After that, it was tough to find a designer for all the logos and posters. But other than the five core members, our seniors, teachers and batchmates also helped a lot. Next time, we’d look at hosting a two-day fest with workshops incorporated into it,” noted Rajath ER of the core committee.
The prize distribution ceremony began with a performance by local hip-hop crew ‘Anaesthetic’, who created an energised ambience and set the stage for the overall winners – Kristu Jayanti College.