Brand Film from India becomes the first ever to win honours at Cannes & Toronto

Passion Films become the first- ever production house from India to win the prestigious CANNES Dolphin 2015 and GOLD STEVIE AWARD 2015.

We are happy to share that Passion Films (www.passionfilmindia.com), a leading production house, have won the CANNES Dolphin 2015 and GOLD STEVIE AWARD 2015, for its brand Film on Shakti Bhog. This is for the first time ever that a production house from India has won these prestigious awards.

The brand story of how Indian Food giant Shakti Bhog was built has been made into a 5-minute animation film produced by Ricky Singh Bedi of Passion Film.  The film traces Shakti Bhog's historical journey from its genesis in 1975 to becoming a billion dollar company today. The film tells this journey in an innovative way celebrating the spirit of 'Philately- the study of stamps and postal cards'.

The animated brand film conceptualized and directed by Ranadeep Bhattacharyya and Judhajit Bagchi has been completely illustrated with over 2000 original illustrations.

This is the First and the only Indian film ever to win the Cannes Dolphin at the Cannes Corporate Media and TV Awards, an international festival dedicated to corporate films. Next to the Cannes Film Festival and Cannes Lions, the Cannes Corporate Media & TV Awards are part of the international festivals of the legendary city of cinema, which took place on 15 October 2015 in Cannes.

Also the First and only Indian Film ever to win the highest honour the Gold Stevie Award at the International Business Awards dubbed as the Oscar for Business Films to be held in Toronto on 23rdOctober.The International Business Awards are the world’s premier business awards program. The 2015 IBAs received 3,700 nominations from organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry from more than 60 nations and territories.The judges at International Business Awards 2015 cited that the Shakti Bhog brand film is extremely innovative in it’s blending of the company’s brand story with the journey of the Indian Postal Stamps that is almost a fading art now in the era of internet.

Bollywood diva Kareena Kapoor Khan congratulated the entire team at Passion Film in a small testimonial video for winning these coveted laurels and signs off by saying “Hopefully next year we win an award for one film which I also star in!”

Link to Kareena Kapoor(s) Video congratulating Passion Film: https://vimeo.com/141989501

Veteran actor Kabir Bedi also shared his joys with the team as he shared “Massive congratulations to Passion Films for winning TWO of the most prestigious awards for their Shakti Bhog corporate brand film. Iam overjoyed to have done a voice-over for this prize winning brand film, and I wish Passion Films even greater international success in the future”

Reacting to the Film’s success a visibly surprised Ricky Singh Bedi of Passion Films shared “I just wanted to support the undying passion of my directors for making this film. I had no clue that this film would be creating history.”

Shakti Bhog was born out of the deep concern to provide hygienic staple food to the people. This was also the vision of independent India's Economic Planning Policy and to communicate the Planning Commission's initiatives with respect to food and agricultural policies to its multilingual citizens, postage stamps issued by the PTO came as an effectivecommunication tools solution. Building on this historical and cultural legacy, Postage Stamps have been adopted in the telling the story of Shakti Bhog in this film. Stamps of Kareena Kapoor Khan, Smriti Irani and Karishma Kapoor, famous brand ambassadors, also feature in this film.

The film with its rich cultural context and treatment has already won highest honours at other prestigious international competitions like the coveted Telly Awards 2015, The Communicator Award 2015, The VideographerAward 2015 and the Accolades Global Award of Excellence 2015.The film has also been playing at several international film festivals.

Judhajit Bagchi, the joint director of the brand film shared the same emotion. “We never ever thought that we would be getting these world laurels. It gives us hope and a lot of encouragement.”

Ranadeep Bhattacharyya, Joint director, explained the process of designing every frame. “I think the credit goes to the entire team. We got used to skype with our team members Ketan and Abhimanyu in the dead of the night for around nine months through this project.  Also, Kabir Bedi was gracious enough to give this film the exact voice that it needs. This is a collective effort and reinstates my faith in arts. I am eternally grateful”