10 hard-hitting National Award winning short films that you need to watch on Youtube right away
Written By
Harshit Bansal

Pistulya‍

Directed by Nagraj Manjule
(Winner of Best Debut Film of A Director 2010)
This film follows a Dalit boy from a village in Maharashtra who desires to attend school, but his social circumstances force him to work in the stealing business that his family has been associated with for generations.

Tokri

Directed by Suresh Eriyat
(Winner of Best Animation Film 2017)
This stop-motion animated film is about a young girl who accidentally breaks her father’s cherished stopwatch and starts selling homemade baskets to pay for its repair.

Syaahi

Directed by Varun Tandon
(Special Mention 2015)
This film follows a young boy who shares a strained relationship with his father, a struggling writer burdened with financial stress.

Kal 15 August Dukan Band Rahegi

Directed by Prateek Vats
(Best Short Film 2010)
This film follows a group of Delhi University students living in a cramped apartment on campus, as they plan how they’d spend their upcoming holiday on 15th August.

Kachichinithu (The Boy with a gun)

Directed by Khanjan Kishore Nath
(Best Short Film 2020)
The film is about Lonsing, a schoolboy who accidentally discovers a small bag containing a pistol on the road, and how he becomes increasingly but secretly fascinated with it.

Chaitra ‍

Directed by Kranti Kanadé
(Best Short Film 2002)
This film is set during the Chaitra festivities in a village in Maharashtra, where a woman decides to take revenge against a neighbourhood woman over a public humiliation.

The Chola Heritage

Directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan
(Special Mention 1980)
This short documentary highlights the Dravidian temple architecture and bronze sculpture which attained the creative pinnacle during the rule of the Cholas in the 10th and the 11th centuries, told entire through videos and images of the temples and statues.

A Pinch Of Skin‍

Directed by Priya Goswami
(Special Mention 2012)
A harrowing documentary about the practice of female genital mutilation in certain communities in India, told from the perspective of the survivors of the practice.

The Eight Column Affair

Directed by Sriram Raghavan
(Special Mention 2012)
This surrealist film imagines a newspaper coming to life, when an athlete featured on the front page falls in love with a tennis starlet featured on the last page of a newspaper, and sets out on a journey through the newspaper pages in order to meet her.

Bazar Sitaram

Directed by Neena Gupta
(Best Debut Film of a Director 1993)
A stunning docu-fiction set in the lanes of Old Delhi, fusing a sociological study of the distinct neighbourhood with a partly fictional story of unfulfilled love.

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