Karishma Dev Dube (top) and Rani Kumari
At this year’s DGA Student Awards, Alum Karishma Dev Dube won Best Asian American Student Filmmaker in the East Region. Her film Bittu chronicles a close friendship between two girls that is eclipsed by an accidental poisoning at school, a story which has won the film a Student Academy Award and the inaugural Black Family Prize grant.
Speaking on her motives behind the film, which she wrote and directed, Dube said it is “inspired by an infamous school poisoning that took place in India in 2013. This film is less about why and how the poisoning happened; instead, it explores a child's experience suddenly and senselessly thrown into such peril...In reimagining the narrative, I took the story to a remote village in the Himalayas' forgotten side, a place that was also home to my boarding school growing up. It was here when I formed my complicated relationship with authority, much like the one Bittu has with her teachers in school.”
Bittu is produced by fellow alum Mary Evangelista.
Find a full list of winners at DGA.