Premiere of The Music of Life
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College Principal and Chief Executive, Michele Sutton OBE addressed the audience at the screening for BAF’s gala opening where she spoke of her pleasure that Bradford College was once again the festival’s major sponsor and the museum’s business partner. She expressed her pride in our growing provision of courses in the area of film, media and animation and particular delight in welcoming special College guests to BAF who had flown in from Dehli and Mumbai.
Michele explained, “Students from the College have recently been in Delhi during the Commonwealth Games, working collaboratively with students in Delhi to showcase their collections at a Fashion Show held at the British Council. In addition, Bradford College has an exclusive partnership with Whistling Woods International, Asia’s largest film, television, animation and media arts institute. This innovative partnership has created new learning and career development opportunities for students from both institutions, allowing Bradford College students the opportunity to study in India and students from Mumbai to study here in Bradford. This evening we are delighted to share with you one of the outputs from this partnership The Music of Life.”
Before the film was screened Michele invited two of the graduates who had worked on the film as students, Kavan Ahalpara and Martin O'Nions, to tell the audience more about the project.
Kavan explained that the film, made as part of the Bradford to Bollywood UKIERI funded project, had taken the photography students at Bradford College and the animation students at Whistling Woods International eighteen months to make. It used 24 photos per second and 2500 photographs in total. He said that he had particularly relished “the chance to learn photography under Trevor Griffiths” and “the friends for life” he had made.
Martin paid tribute to the friendship of fellow students from India which had been a life changing experience, which in some ways mirrored the film’s storyline. He said, “The film is set in a busy street in Mumbai and as the blind musician sits on the street to play his music, he becomes frustrated as it is conflicting with the street sounds. He enters a dreamlike state and goes deep into his playing so the interruptions become part of his music. It ends with a coin landing. The moral of the story is that if you focus on your goals and have a positive mental attitude you can succeed, whoever you are.”
Sincere congratulations are extended to the teams from Whistling Woods International and Bradford College who made this fantastic film.
For WWI: students Prachi Agrawal, Kavan Ahalpara, Bijal Choksi, Kanav Gupta, Kuldeep Mehta, Zenish Mehta, Bharat Rasghania and Abhishek Puri; project leader Dhananjay Khore and Line Producer Gokul K.
For BC: students Emily Byrom, Zoë Finlayson, Aimee Lynch, Martin O’Nions, Louise Reynolds, Sana Shaikh, Emily Smith, Becky Sturdy, Lora West and Vanessa Wheatley; directed by acclaimed photographer Trevor Griffiths.