The NETPAC Award is given to a film by an Asian director who shows important contributions to the new Asian cinema movement.

On the heels of audience acclaim at its world premiere at Busan International Film Festival and European premiere at Tallinn Black Nights, Siddartha Jatla and Amanda Mooney’s self-produced, micro budget love story, Love and Shukla , has won the prestigious NETPAC Award at Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival.

Love and Shukla

Love and Shukla

Love and Shukla is the story of sex, love and the search for privacy in a small, one-room Mumbai chawl. Shukla, an auto driver from an orthodox Brahmin family, has never intimately known a woman other than the celluloid starlets he watches every day on the 4 inch display of his mobile phone. When his mother arranges his sudden marriage, Shukla and his new wife face the experience of so many couples in Mumbai: a new marriage, no experience in a relationship and a joint family love nest that offers no space for sex, much less a conversation. Their only respite is a line of old suitcases set up by his father to separate them from the family, a cell phone and a city of 18 million eyes.

Siddhartha Jatla wrote, produced, directed, shot and edited Love and Shukla, along with Amanda Mooney who wrote, produced and edited the film with Jatla. This is his and Mooney’s first feature. The film stars Saharsh Kumar Shukla, whose recent films include Raees, Rangoon, Highway, Ugly and Talvar and newcomers Taneea Rajawat, Hima Singh, Aparna Upadhyay and Loknath Tiwari.

Congratulating the Love and Shukla cast and crew on the award, jury members celebrated Love and Shukla for, “Expressing innocence about a completely congested world bereft of intimacy and in search of authentic communication.”

Love and Shukla will next travel to its US premiere at the Palm Springs International Film Festival and to festivals across Europe and Asia.

 

Also Read: ZOYA AKHTAR’S MENTEE- AMIRA BHARGAVA’S FILM ‘AAMER’ SCREENS AT AJYAL YOUTH FESTIVAL IN DOHA

 

Watch Trailer here: