The documentary made on IIMC's cow project, More than Milk, has won Australian Bond University student Abigail Knight the major prize in the annual Bond University Film and Television Awards (BUFTA).
Abigail is the 2024 Best Overall Filmmaker Award for her film 'More Than Milk' and was awarded a full scholarship to study a Bachelor of Film and Television at Bond University.
“Mum had volunteered with the Institute for Indian Mother and Child since she was 18 and took me to Calcutta to see the work they do," she says. “There are so many projects the IIMC has done since it started in 1989, including schools and clinics, that it took me a while to decide on the social business program they call the cow project.”
Battling a “very different culture”, Abigail says the IIMC’s director Dr Sujit Brahmochary helped organise eight women to tell their stories on camera.
Her film follows their stories, outlining how buying a cow, thanks to small business loan from IIMC, had changed their lives and that of their communities.
The importance of a cow in Indian society was one of the driving forces behind the business start-ups. Women who now own a cow can produce and sell milk, cheese and yoghurt, cow dung (used as fire fuel), as well as planting crops with the money they earn - more than just milk.
Bond University Film and Television Awards (BUFTA) is THE short film competition for aspiring filmmakers from Year 11 and 12 secondary schools across Australia.
Comentarios