Our third year film won the NAHEMI award for best undergraduate drama

Roshan Balu

I wanted to tell a story that felt authentic to me, highlighting an issue of identity in a nuanced way. This was truly inspired by the world around me. How do you navigate two distinctively different worlds? Which culture do you feel like you belong to? All of these questions that followed me pushed this story forwards.

As I developed the idea with my co-writer Max Roberts, the more drafts we went through, the clearer the story became. We had a lot of time and space at University to develop it, and I think at this point, the tutors understood the story I wanted to tell. By giving us the space and support to develop it, it became more potent and true to me. It was a fun process and one that I learnt a lot from. 

For the final film to win the NAHEMI undergraduate award for best drama was a nice surprise! To win an award like this felt like the best way I could’ve finished my time at UoG, and marked a realisation that stories like this are important, and are being acknowledged.

Since graduating, I’ve been writing, developing and shooting my next short film, ‘Ascend’, working alongside some of my peers from the course and some established industry professionals. It’s great to be able to continue making films after University, building on everything I learnt and developed on the course.