City’s Sahajmeet attends filmmaking workshop in US

Gurvinder Singh

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, June 24

City-based PhD student Sahajmeet was among the group of youths who participated in ‘Beyond Borders: A workshop on filmmaking across the Punjab region’ organised at Indiana University in the US.

Sahajmeet said learning filmmaking and interacting with students from other side of the border was fascinating.

The workshop had 15 students from India and Pakistan. They made ten documentaries in 21 days. The workshop was initiated by the Media School in Indiana University to bring together young people from the two countries. The project was funded by the US Embassy in India as well as Pakistan, Sahaj said.

“We were taught the basics of filmmaking,” beams Sahaj. “Interestingly, every Indian had a Pakistani roommate. My roommate Isha Shakeel was a very good company,” she said.

Every Pakistani student was receptive and knew a lot about our culture, she said. “Sadly, we didn’t know much about them,” she said. “A lot of intellectual talk and learning happened,” she said.

During the workshop, 10 groups of three students were formed, each comprising students from India’s Punjab and Pakistan’s Punjab. Speaking about the films they made, she said one of the films was in Punjabi, another didn’t have any dialogue.

“I also directed a film ‘Hello Hello’ which was a poetic film about a woman and her take on how similar the life is on both sides of the border,” she said. Another film ‘No-man’s land’ was about two women — one Sikh and another Muslim — and their equation. The films would be sent to the US Embassy. After getting approval, they would be screened online through the social media, she said.