The many hats of a nature photographer

Strap: Kunwar Raj Singh and his team ‘Filmy Boys’ making waves in big screen

Box: His tryst with short films

In 2016, during an international short film contest organised by the Sikhnet, Kunwar Raj Singh film ‘Bute da Parshad’ won him the first prize. There was no looking back after this and he then set off on a journey to filmdom. He directed more short films. He also won Dadasaheb Phalke Award for his short film in 2016 and his movies got nominated for the next two years for the same award. In 2017, during his internship as a student of bachelor of the multimedia course at the Apeejay College of Fine Arts here, he appeared for an interview with the T-series company, which selected him as an assistant director for the Ajay Devgn starrer thriller ‘Badshaho’.

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, September 16

It all started with his passion for nature photography. Initially shooting only with the help of phone, Kunwar Raj Singh’s had his moment when his photographs were picked by the National Geography Channel. The next day, his father Sarabjit Singh, a businessman, surprised him with a DLSR camera. He started shooting one-minute films which later drove him towards attempting short films.

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Got Phalke Award for short films

In 2016, during an international short film contest organised by the Sikhnet, his film ‘Bute da Parshad’ won him the first prize. There was no looking back after this and he then set off on a journey into filmdom. He directed more short films. He also won Dadasaheb Phalke Award for his short film in 2016 and his movies got nominated for the next two years for the same award.

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His Bollywood moment

In 2017, during his internship as a student of bachelor of the multimedia course at the Apeejay College of Fine Arts here, he appeared for an interview with the T-series company, which selected him as an assistant director for the Ajay Devgn starrer thriller ‘Badshaho’. Diljit Dosanjh’s ‘Soorma’ came next and then was John Abraham’s ‘Romeo Akbar Walter (RAW)’. His much-awaited project as an assistant director and writer is ‘Attack’, a film with John Abraham as producer and actor. It is set to hit the theatres in January this year. The film has Jacqueline Fernandez and Rakul Preet Singh in the starcast. “I am especially waiting for this one as I have even performed the role as a doctor in this one,” he said.

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Meet his Jalandhar mates

A resident of Jalandhar Heights, Kunwar Raj says in Jalandhar, I have a team of friends from my college who have been a part of each of the short films directed by me. We call our team ‘Filmy Boys’ and we recently released a song ‘Oceana’ by Rashmeet Kaur under Sony Music India, which is making waves. We have also collaborated with artists such as Bollywood star singer ‘Badshah’, The Landers, Arman Bedil, Lisa Mishra, Ikka and Karma to name a few. Kunwar Raj Singh and Subeg Singh Bhogal, who directed the song, said, “Our Jalandhar mates have been looking after all the departments of film making such as editing, script writing, concept building, art and production. While Priyanshu Solanki does script writing/concept building, Robin Singh Randhawa is an editor, VFX artist and colorist, Prateek Arora takes care of production and Yogesh Singh takes care of all the art and graphics. All did their schooling and college from Jalandhar.

Kunwar Raj Singh, did his schooling from MGN, Adarsh Nagar and graduation from Apeejay. Subeg and Priyanshu are qualified engineers from DAVIET whereas Robin, Prateek and Yogesh are still studying in Apeejay College of Fine Arts. “We have had void of just one person – a costume designer. I am waiting for my sister Khushi to complete her graduation in fashion designing and fill that place soon.”