KOTTAYAM, March 27, 2012

Principal Correspondent

Pachilakkoodu — My Home is Green, the animation film produced by the Kottayam based Digital Media and directed by Sajan Sindhu, has won the Golden Camera award for best animation film at the Nashik International film festival 2012 which concluded on Sunday.

Pachilakoodu, dedicated to those children who lost their lives in the endosulfan mishap in Kasaragod district, tells the poignant tale of two tiny creatures -an ant and a caterpillar. The lonely ant who had lost his entire tribe in a pesticide mishap meets a baby caterpillar and a relationship develops between them. The story moves ahead through the memories of the ant and the metamorphosis of the caterpillar.

The film, the first directorial venture of Sajan, has already won accolades at various festivals including IFFI Goa last November, All India Educational Audio Video Fest by NCERT at Delhi, International Documentary and Short Film Fest organized by Chalachitra Akademi, Vatavaran Festival organized by Ministry of Environment and Centre for Media Studies, New Delhi etc..

“However, the most exhilarating moments are when I receive the accolades from students after my shows at the schools,” says Sajan. “ Sometimes they all want to shake hands with me,” he says. Sajan, who has spent nearly five years with the tribes people of Attapady working with a school for the tribals, later involved himself with the struggle against endosulphan in Kasargod. In the meantime, he also shifted his base to Kozhikode. Pachilakkoodu was the creation of a team of nine friends who worked for more than one and a half years, day and night, from a rented house near the town, he said.

The team has now dispersed, but Sajan has moved on to his second work.

The preproduction works are going on for film on the rare paddy seed Kayyeni which has almost become extinct, he said over telephone.click here

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