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Updated February 11th, 2021 at 12:05 IST

14-year-old Neel Menon bags Best Documentary award for film 'Girls Should Stay at Home'

The film, Girls Should Stay At Home, helmed by Neel Menon has recently won the Best Documentary Award at the San Diego International Kids Film Festival.

Reported by: Brandon Fernandes
Neel Menon
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The 14-year-old kid Neel Menon has already begun adding feathers on his hat with his prolific work. Neel Menon, who hails from Mumbai, has been garnering heaps of praise and accolades for his film Girls Should Stay At Home. The film, Girls Should Stay At Home, has recently won the Best Documentary Award at the San Diego International Kids Film Festival. Apart from that, the film has also won awards in other film festivals around the world.

Neel's film, which earned him the Best Documentary Short Award at the San Diego International Kids Film Festival and received multiple awards, chronicles the struggles of three remarkable women who have struggled against their families to make a place for themselves in the world and become independent, contributing members of society. In February 2020, Menon made the film as part of a school project and it was seen by a variety of non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Neel Menon told Cinestaan that Girls Should Stay At Home began as a 'Service As Action' project for his school, the Oberoi International School in Mumbai. He revealed that they had been told to choose one of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals, and that he had chosen gender equality as a subject as he had not really explored the creatively. His teachers have been good enough to give him the freedom to use film as a medium.

The young filmmaker said that, initially, the idea was to create a film that would tell the stories of five or six women in India who had broken social barriers. He started looking online for contact numbers and emails and eventually chose three women whose stories could inspire others around the world.

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Talking about the development of the film, he revealed that the research and filming process had taken about two months to complete. The interview locations and the framing were pretty standard, but he wanted to focus more on the B-Roll as it helped to convey the personality of these three fantastic women in their natural habitats. He added that his main goal during the editing process was to keep it as simple as possible. He didn't want the style or the graphics to get in the way of their stories. Overall, his focus was on telling these three stories of these amazing women to inspire others to start telling theirs. Watch the documentary below.

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The documentary film

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Published February 11th, 2021 at 12:07 IST

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