“Our milestones include the fact that ASIFA India, now celebrates IAD in 8 to 10 cities every year. We have been successful in breaking down pre-conceived notions that individuals carry and have seen people set aside their personal or corporate agendas and come together with the only goal of contributing to the community.”
Year on year International Animation Day has positively impacted thousands of students and artists from all over India. Where do you get all that energy and that drive from?
At ASIFA India, the core team and all the volunteers that have come together are extremely passionate about Animation and have a strong desire to give back to the community. IAD started out as a small event, but the overwhelming positive feedback from all the participants has kept encouraging us to do something better each year. A lot of the volunteers today first got to experience IAD as a student, and today they absolutely want more students to feel the same initial excitement.
On personal level, I take great inspiration and drive from my father who loved animation and was selfless in trying to promote Indian animation to the world. I am happy to be able to continue realizing his dreams and vision.
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We must compliment you on the wonderful festive, friendly yet focused atmosphere that team IAD manages to create. It is the only multi city animation festival in India. What do you yourself love about it the most?
Seeing students and professionals enjoy the festival makes it all “WORTH IT”.
I love the sight of people feeling that they have learned something, while at the same time it is great to see all the joy and excitement in people‘s faces. IAD is supposed to be a fun festival, and spontaneous celebrations of the participants and also the unbelievable energy of the volunteers is great to experience. The support we get from the sponsors and supporters is very touching.
How many years has it been now? Could you share some milestones with us?
ASIFA India is now celebrating it‘s 10th year in India and I have been fortunate to be the president for the last 5 years. It is great to see our little organization take a life of its own and grown into a fully grown elephant that needs to be be fed and nurtured regularly. That in itself is the biggest milestone! 🙂
Other milestones include the fact that ASIFA India, now celebrates IAD in 8 to 10 cities every year. We have been successful in breaking down pre-conceived notions that individuals carry and have seen people set aside their personal or corporate agendas and come together with the only goal of contributing to the community. This has been wonderful!
“For several years we have been contemplating the need to open sub-chapters all around India. The goal here is to tap into the tremendous energy and passion of so many individuals that we have interacted with in various cities that IAD has visited. We would like each of these groups of volunteers to use ASIFA India to best help grow animation.
You have now announced sub chapters for ASIFA India? Which cities are they and who‘s on-board? Interestingly you are also venturing beyond the traditional hubs…
For several years we have been contemplating the need to open sub-chapters all around India. The goal here is to tap into the tremendous energy and passion of so many individuals that we have interacted with in various cities that IAD has visited. We would like each of these groups of volunteers to use ASIFA India to best help grow animation in their local communities and to celebrate their passion on a regular basis with other like minded individuals. Currently we have 4 sub-chapters which all have a core management team of volunteers.
The Mumbai team has – Saraswathi Balgam, A.R.Seshaprasad, Amit Aidasani, Bill Dennis, Shrirang Sathaye, Arnab Chaudhari, Chetan Sharma, Anand Gurnani, Mehul Hirani, Laura Dohrmann and R.K.Chand.
The Pune team is – Chetan Deshmukh, Medha Kulkarni and Jerzy Kular
Bengaluru – Anand Baid, Munish Goel, Madhusudan, Biren Ghose, Archana Krishnamurthy, C. Prakash and Aruna Kumar
Indore – Sanjay Khimesara, Vijyesh Joshi, Kavita Gupta, Mukesh Agrawal, Sanjay Jain, The Director EMRC, Abhay Jain, Sundeep Gupta, Nikhil Barjatya, and Manohar Soni
Hyderabad – Rajshekhar, Ramakrishna Polina, Rajiv Chilaka, Kalyani and Sanchari Bose
What‘s your vision for ASIFA India over the next 5 years?
Our vision for ASIFA is simply to share our joy for animation and give the community as much as we can. We want each of the teams and sub chapters to realize the vision in their own manner. For example, we would like to bring some of the best speakers from around the world to India and have them share their experiences with all the teams. We would also like to showcase emerging local talent from both the professional and student communities in India. There really are some amazing individuals right here in India that we would love everyone to get inspired by. Furthermore, as we move forward, we know that our community will face several challenges, and we would like to be a resource to help bring everyone together and help out in whatever way we can. Again, as long as we are true to the spirit and values that started ASIFA India, I am sure each sub chapter will come up with ideas that will resonate within their communities in ways that we can‘t even imagine today!
Now let‘s talk about CG Meetups… A lot of artists have actually grown attending the meet-ups… what‘s the scene on that?
The CGMeetups that we have conducted over the years have been very successful and we are definitely committed to conducting more CGMeetups. Especially now that we have the sub-chapters, we expect each subchapter to organize and conduct more such meetings. We are getting a lot of support from professionals in our industry who are willing to present and to share their knowledge, We are already planning for 10 specific CGMeetups in the upcoming year to be conducted in the various cities around India, so it is quite exciting!
I would particularly like to recognize and thank once again the tireless efforts and commitment of all the volunteers of ASIFA India. As we are a non profit organization, we survive only because of the contributions of the volunteers and also the support of so many amazing companies, institutes, and organizations who share our goals and vision. Thanks to everyone and hope to see you all at lot more over the next year and at IAD 2011! 🙂