Ashish Pandey wins at Busan Film Fest with Nooreh.

The 23rd Busan International Film Festival​ (BIFF)​ concluded Saturday after a 10-day run. And amongst the winners is a filmmaker from India.
Ashish Pandey’s Nooreh (India) has won the Sonje Award along with Kwon Sung-mo’s Cat Day Afternoon (South Korea).

Nooreh is an eight-year-old girl living in a village on the India-Pakistan border. She discovers that gunfights stop when she wakes up. When the crossfire becomes so bad that school closes, Nooreh decides to stay up all night. Will the gunfight really stop if she does not fall asleep?
Produced, written and directed by Pandey, the 22-minute short film stars the young Saima Latief in the lead role.

The Sonje award is granted to the best Korean and Asian short films in the Wide Angle Competition section. Winners are granted 10,000,000 KRW (approx. 10,000 USD) each with the purpose of assisting in their next production.

​According to the BIFF website, Nooreh is a story that beautifully captures day and night with a captivating performance of the main character. An impressive track of light and darkness of the human nature that creates a folk sonata of the war reveals hope.

Another notable mention is that of Vidyashankar Neelakanta Jois. The Festival Director of Bengaluru International Film Festival served as a jury member for the NETPAC Award, and was the lone Indian juror.

A total of 324 films from 79 countries were screened at the event, with a 115 world premieres and 25 international premieres. And this led to an attendance of a whopping 195,081 as published by the organizers, which ran from 4 – 13 October 2018.