With his short film and documentary dubbbed into as many as 11 languages, Rajendra Vinod, a 24-year-old from Hindpur in Andhra Pradesh has found a place in this year’s Guinness Book of World Records that has awarded him two honours.
Vinod has recieved two Officially Amazing certificates from Guinness for directing Change, which has become the ‘Most translated short film (dubbed) and for Lepakshi for being the most translated short documentary with each having 11 dubbed versions. The languages include English, French, Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Assamese and Bengali.
Both Lepakshi and Change directed by Vinod were released in India on 28 February 2014. Vinod had established his dubbing studio in Bengaluru two years ago dreaming to make short films and documentary on not only issues plaguing the society but fiction too.
After having made nine films so far, which includes seven short films, one documentary and one art film, Vinod says he ran into financial difficulties.
“There was a situation when I wanted to make films and could not because financial difficulties so I took the one documentary which I already made and a short film to win this accolade. I never intended to win an award but thought it would do good and bring in funds so that I could continue making films”, says Vinod.
Lepakshi – the documentary and Change – the short film were submitted to the Guinness World Records this July and Vindo received a certificate from the award body last month.
“These two projects were dubbed into 11 different languages. We began this in the month of February 2014 and released the first version which is English on February 28, 2014. The entire dubbing process took about eight months and has been totally made by students”, he says.
“The eventual result was a huge pile of translated audio files, which we began editing in October 2014 and continued till June 2015. For the submission there had a documentation process which took about a month and we finally submitted it to the Guinness World Record this July”, says the filmmaker.
Pursuing his love for historical sites, Vinod says he directed Lepakshi an archaeological site with life-size sculptures and lovely paintings. The documentary recounts the epic of Ramayana.
The short film Change on the other hand takes viewers through philosophy of change in one’s life. The routines, ups and downs and how it changes lives in the process.
The short film and the documentary have also won in one national and 12 International film festivals. The short film production house Aarvi films, which is founded by me was adjudged with Best Production House award in the third Delhi shorts International film festival 2014.
“The World Records University has also conferred honorary doctorate on me and I became the youngest Indian film maker ever to receive honorary doctorate”, Vinod says.
The qualified young man who holds three post graduate degrees in various subjects also talks about his foundation We are Foundation which was established in 2012 and works for the community by making such films for its development. I want to give back to the community and make people aware of the various historical sites, our heritage.
“I wish the government could provide aspiring filmmakers like us with financial help after seeing our work”, says Vinod.