A 12-minute Malayalam short film Kandittund! that grabbed people’s attention in the animation industry for highlighting regional language dialogues, local music and traditional hand-drawn animation has bagged the 69th National Award for Best Animation Film. SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus RRR fetched three awards for the team.
The animated short directed by Adithi Krishnadas and produced by Nilima Eriyat premiered on 14 November 2021. Academy Award winner Resul Pookutty along with Vijaykumar have worked on the sound design for the film.
The short features P.N.K Panicker and his super-natural encounters. P.N.K Panicker is the father of Studio Eeksaurus founder Suresh Eriyat.
Sharing the news of this amazing win, Eriyat told Animation Xpress, “Our film Kandittund! based on my father’s ghost stories, directed by Adithi Krishnadas, a young alumni of NID won the 69th National Award for Best Animation Film today!! Many congratulations to all who made this possible, huge gratitude to everyone behind it. All of us at Eeksaurus are super happy and proud!! Adithi probably is the youngest director to win the National Award for Best Animation Film.”
Krishnadas had a strong interest in art and animation since her childhood. She graduated from NID’s undergraduate animation programme. After working for Vaibhav Studios as part of her graduation project, she joined Eeksaurus. Kandittund! is her first major animated film. “A bit disoriented about the news right now, but super happy that this film that we put a lot of love into and slogged over got such a great recognition,” Krishnadas exclaimed.
Kandittund! had also won the Best Animation Film Silver Conch at Mumbai International Film Festival 2022, Satoshi Kon Award for Excellence in animation at Fantasia International Film Festival (FIFF) 2021 and Best Gripping Movie at the prestigious T-short animated film festival.
Another big win is for the Indian blockbuster film RRR. The pan-India film made the nation proud at the 95th Academy Awards for MM Keeravani’s peppy dance number “Naatu Naatu,” also received laurels at the 69th National Film Awards for special effects and action direction and choreography.
Visual effects veteran Srinivas Mohan was an integral part of the shoot of RRR, and led 18 studios, delivering 2,800 VFX shots for the Ram Charan- and Jr NTR-starrer. In an exclusive interview with Animation Xpress, Mohan had revealed that 70-80 percent of the shots were done using CGI, which he termed as invisible effects. It was Mohan’s prior planning that had ensured seamless coordination among the teams.
To know more about the unique challenge of creating photorealistic creatures in the patriotic saga which is about the two legendary revolutionaries (Komaram Bheem aka Bheema and Alluri Sitarama Raju aka Rama) and their journey away from home before they started fighting for their country in 1920’s, read: Here.
