Post Editorial Coverage of Arena Chowringhee Interface Awards 09

Year 2009 once again saw Arena Animation Chowringhee showcasing the creative talents of their students at Vidya Mandir on 21st November in presence of the eminent guests such as Mr.Prosenjit Ganguly, Mr.Sarbajit Sen and Mr.Arthur Cardozo from the animation fraternity.

Mr Prosenjit Ganguly- an independent animation design professional, an alumnus and former member of the faculty of National Institute of Design, Ahmadabad inspired the budding animators by speaking about the meaning, the process and the stages of animation development. He spoke about the importance of story, research, concept and the visualization that goes behind making an animation film.He also illustrated how passion as an ingredient can act as a catalyst in the process that translates ones thoughts and ideas into the output of animation. He encouraged parents to urge their children to initiate the process of telling stories in order to improve their skills.


Mr. Sarabjit Sen , a cartoonist grown up in the city of Kolkata having an unmistakable Indian flavor of his comic strips, cartoons, illustrations and even children’s books spoke briefly on the subject of graphic novels and complimented the students for their effort and their hard work. The objective of bringing out the excellence from the budding animators has been the exclusive culture of Arena Animation Chowringhee under the guidance and competent leadership of Mr.A.D.Singh.

The program which followed drew a lot of appreciation from the audience started with a series of cultural events comprising of the inaugural Rabindra Sangeet followed by dance recital-Saraswati Vandana.




Speaking on the occasion the Center Director Mr. A.D.Singh said : “It is here in this city when we started in 1997and since then we have grown by leaps and bounds and this has been only possible with the response of the creative people of Kolkata. Our center has been nominated for awards and accolades not only within India but also internationally. Recently three of our students have been selected as the winning team to represent India in the final competition of the Panorama Asia Pacific Animation Design Challenge 2009 sponsored by Autodesk to be held in Hongkong from 10th -15th Dec 2009 for their short film titled “Save the World”. This year we have added 3 major feathers to our cap -: firstly by launching the B.Sc degree in Animation in association with MS University. Secondly we have become an Adobe certified testing center whereby students can become Adobe certified in different technologies and thirdly we are in the process of expanding from a 5000 sq ft to a 10000 sq foot capacity to accommodate their even increasing capacity of more than 800 students.”

The Interface Awards was based on a series of competitions which were held in the centre. The students have worked extremely hard and to submit their entries. The various categories were as follows: 2D Illustration Art , 3D Illustration Art , Graphic Novel, Public Service Announcement (PSA) and Website Designing. The judges for these categories were Mr. Yunus Bukhari – Visual Effects Producer, Artery & SFX, Mr. Sanjay Pandey– a film maker and Mr. Puneet Sharma – Technical Advisor - Aptech Arena

The event also had the short film competition called Chalochobbi Awards which has a Viewer’s Choice Award. The results were as follows:

Winner was Super Hero by Amrit Tigga , Sampa Kundu , Arindam Mondal and Sk Abul Fazal.
First Runner Up were: Rikshawala by Sayani Majunder , Saheli Bakshi and Deepika Tamang

Along with the Award ceremony there were a lot of cultural events for which the students had practiced a lot to put up an excellent show. It once again established a great team spirit and togetherness which yield a high degree of efficiency and productivity which again proves that Arena Chowringhee has created a firm foothold in this highly competitive animation education industry.