Noted filmmaker and LXL Ideas MD & Chief Learner, Syed Sultan Ahmed’s short film ‘Apples and Oranges’ has won the National Film Award for the Best Educational Film’. Vice President, M. Venkaiah Naidu presented the award to the film’s Producer, Syed Sultan Ahmed and Director, Rukhsana Tabassum at the 67th National Film Awards function held at Vigyan Bhawan on Monday.
Sultan started producing films exclusively for children and education from 2010 and has produced over 120 short films for a project called SCHOOL CINEMA. These films are used as part of the school curriculum to teach Life Skills & Social Emotional Intelligence that is recommended by the NEP 2020. Over 2 million children have watched these films as part of their school curriculum across India and Middle East. In addition to winning 7 National Film Awards in India the films produced by LXL Ideas have featured in over 450 International children’s film festivals and won several accolades.
It is noteworthy that this is the seventh film produced by Syed Sultan Ahmed to be awarded the National Film Award. Prior to this, he received national awards for Red Building, Where the Sun Sets’ (2011), The Finish Line’ (2011), Chasing the Rainbow’ (2013), Best Friends Forever’ (2015), Little Magicians’ (2016) and The Waterfall’ (2016) in the categories of Best Film on Family Values’, Best Film on Sports’, Best Promotional Film’, Best Film on Family Values’, Best Film on Family Values’ and Best Educational Film’ respectively.
Humanity has been taught through the film ‘Apples and Oranges’. It depicts the friendship/companionship between humans. It does not discriminate on the basis of caste, religion, region or colour. An incident that takes place in two villages named Apples and Oranges has been shot in this 15-minute film. It is shown in the film that there is enmity between these two villages. But two small girls of these two villages unknowingly become friends. When they come to know about the enmity, they break their friendship.
Sultan Ahmed’s association with films and education
Syed Sultan Ahmed has been associated with films, research, publishing, and education for many years. He has established an institute named LXL Ideas. The organization works to provide life lessons through films, events, research, training, and publications. Sultan Ahmed has received many accolades for his work at the international level. A resident of Bengaluru, he completed his engineering from Bangalore University and went on to pursue Masters in Entrepreneurship from MIT-Boston. Many of his research papers on child development and film pedagogy have been published in various international research journals. He is the curator of Saudi Arabia’s first Children’s Film Festival.
