Students and filmmakers awarded at digital film festival

Rawalpindi:The final award distribution ceremony of NAQSH Digital Film Festival, a nationwide event to showcase short films and documentaries created by students, amateurs and emerging professionals, was held at Fatima Jinnah Women University.

Stars of Pakistani media industry from acting to film production and from legendary camera professionals to direction graced the occasion including Shahzad Nawaz, Noor ul Hassan, Ahmer Sohail Basra, Memoona Qudoos, Pervaiz Akhtar, Hajra Yamin, Ejaz Gul, Nargis Hashmi, Aqeel Shah, Syed Farooq Hassan, Diplomats form US Embassy, representatives from advertising agencies and production houses were present at the ceremony. Veteran actor Jamal Shah was chief guest at the occasion.

‘Taana Baana’, a documentary on fading chair caning industry of Pakistan by Hamza Farooq won the award for best documentary in professional category. ‘Main Malangi’ by Ahmad Abbass won the award for best documentary in student category. In the category of short films, ‘Don’t be afraid, Jiya’ by Hamza Baig secured first position for best short film in professional category and ‘Onus’ by Abu Bakar won the best short film award in student category.

Cash prizes were also given to the winners of the competition. While addressing the occasion, chief guest Jamal Shah said that Pakistan is full of beautiful imprints that needed to be shown to the world. He added that it was up to the youth of Pakistan in general and young filmmakers in particular to highlight the beautiful face of the country. He praised the department of Communication and Media Studies (CMS) of Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU) which organised NDFF. He thanked Fatima Jinnah Women University for the initiative.

Vice Chancellor of Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU), Dr. Saima Hamid expressed her views that FJWU is the leading institute which is following the new trends especially during and after the COVID pandemic. Events like NDFF are crucial for implementing the goal of women empowerment which is in line with the vision of Fatima Jinnah Women University.

Director Naqsh Digital Film Festival and the Head of CMS department, Dr. Muhammad Ali, was of the view that it is the vision of the CMS department to provide such platforms to the students where they can learn and experience the practical aspects of the production, which ultimately lead towards creating the skilled workforce for the media industry.

Yasir Qadir, CEO of Rime Digital and collaborator of NDFF said that Pakistan has a strong talent base as witnessed through all the entries submitted in the competition. The stories were really inspiring and the digital infrastructure is growing which proves that it is the right time to focus on digital media sector from both content and platform creation perspective.