{"id":51288,"date":"2017-02-13T02:11:44","date_gmt":"2017-02-13T02:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/?p=51288"},"modified":"2017-02-13T12:15:18","modified_gmt":"2017-02-13T12:15:18","slug":"elizabeth-thomas-wins-best-foreign-film-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/?p=51288","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Thomas Wins Best Foreign Film Award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Thomas (Priya) d\/of Rev. Fr. Thomas Varghese, Mumbai Wins Best Foreign Film Award<\/span><\/p>\n

\"elizabeth\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Elizabeth Thomas, a second-year Master of Divinity student at Holy Cross, won the Best Foreign Film Award at the Universal Film Festival (UFF) in Kansas City, Missouri, on Saturday, October 1,2016. She was awarded for her short film \u201cAnand,\u201d about a \u201cstreet kid rising from the ashes\u201d in her native India. The mission of the UFF is to provide aspiring filmmakers with the opportunity to have their work seen and promoted. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I heard about Anand when I was working as assistant director on a McDonald\u2019s commercial in Mumbai. His name means \u2018joy\u2019 in Hindi.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s a true story,\u201d says Elizabeth, \u201cabout a boy who was raised in an orphanage and dreams of becoming a professional soccer player. A friend in Pune, where the orphanage is, told me he had a great story for me there, so I went and was really moved by Anand\u2019s story. I gathered a crew, we had one week of intense shooting, then it took a month to create the film.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost 300 films, both short and feature-length, from over 50 countries were submitted to the festival. With such long odds of winning, Elizabeth had no expectations apart from meeting other filmmakers there. Even a dear friend, Rev. Fr. Anthony Salzman (M.Div. 1989) advised, \u201cEmpty your bag of expectations and fill it with memories and experiences.\u201d Initially, she did not expect to go at all because the cost of getting there was beyond her means, but \u201cmy fellow students were so proud of me that they said, \u2018You have to go!\u2019\u201d and the Student Government Association raised the funds for her airfare. \u201cI was so touched and so grateful.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Elizabeth arrived in Kansas City knowing no one, but as soon as her 9\u00bd-minute film won the top award\u2014beating out feature films by more seasoned filmmakers\u2014 \u201call kinds of people wanted to meet me and give me their business cards. It was just incredible!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Growing up in Mumbai as the daughter of an Orthodox priest, Elizabeth \u201cwanted to know where my talent was, what God wanted me to do.\u201d Making her first film for a college course in mass communications ignited a passion for filmmaking that took her next to film school and work on a Bollywood blockbuster\u2014hardly a conventional path for a priest\u2019s daughter. Yet once her family realized how determined and how talented she was, they gave their blessing for her to pursue her dream.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asked why she is studying theology, Elizabeth says, \u201cI realized that I needed to get a deeper understanding of how to be a light of Christ, so I can help shape people\u2019s lives through film.\u201d And why Holy Cross? \u201cI had met some Holy Cross students and learned about the school through them. It is such a supportive place. And I am fascinated by Greek culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

Like every MDiv candidate, Elizabeth will be doing a master\u2019s thesis in her final year\u2014in the form of a film, of course. She is not yet sure what the subject will be, but \u201cGod will show me the way. Every good thing that has happened in my life is totally God\u2019s grace.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Nagpur St Thomas Orthodox Theological Seminary Principal along with the Seminary family congratulates Priya Thomas on her meritorious achievement. We also wish her all success in pursuing Master in Divinity Course from Holy Cross Seminary.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elizabeth Thomas (Priya) d\/of Rev. Fr. Thomas Varghese, Mumbai Wins Best Foreign Film Award Elizabeth Thomas, a second-year Master of Divinity student at Holy Cross, won the Best Foreign Film … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awards-honours"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51288"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51290,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51288\/revisions\/51290"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/malankaraorthodox.tv\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}