NEW DELHI: The film Mahek by K Kanade, which has already won several awards overseas, has been selected by a major college in the United States to form part of its curriculum syllabus of the integrative studies programme on Modern India.

Otterbein College in Ohio which is one of the oldest universities in the United States (founded in 1847), has said that the film produced by the Children’s Film Society, India, has been selected the film as it is an introspective Hindi film that sensitively portrays the world of children and their rights.

Faculty President Jiten V Ruparel has in a notice said that the film has been winning awards and accolades at various international festivals.

Mahek recently bagged the Best Feature Film (Family) Platinum Remi Award at the prestigious 41st Houston International Film Festival 2008 and the best feature film award at the 10th Arpa International Film Festival in Hollywood.

The film had been nominated in Houston for as many as six categories including the Best Feature Film at the Festival: Director, screenplay, first Feature, best foreign film and best Family Film.

Mahek had its world premiere at the prestigious 51st London Film Festival 2007 and later was screened at several International Film Festivals including the 32nd Cleveland Film Festival, and at St Louis, Chicago, Frankfurt and Sydney. This was the only Indian film at the Houston festival.

Mahek is a young girl's journey towards self-realization. It looks at the world through the imaginative eyes of children and examines their rights. What children miss most is respect - for them and for their imagination. Eleven-year old Mahek wants to be the best in everything, but she does not know what she is best at. To complicate things, an old, magic-less Modern Fairy walks into her life and brings her face to face with reality.

The cast of the film include Shreya Sharma, Anuya Bhagwat, Madan Deodhar, Anuja Borkar, Dheeresh Joshi, Madhavi Gadgil and Lalan Sarang. The international crew was made up of Music Composer Mathieu Lamboley based in Paris, Associate Director Matthias Schwelm based in Berlin, and Second Associate Director Sania Jhankar studying at Tisch, New York. The Indian crew had DOP Mrinal Desai, Co-Writer Kedar Dharwadkar, Editor Suchitra Sathe, Sound recordist Anmol Bhave, Re-recording artists Anup Dev-Subir Das, Costume designer Dinaaz Gabrani and Makeup Director Kavita Koparkar.

Legendary artist Mario Miranda did the sketches for this film. It is for the first time that Miranda has drawn for a Hindi feature film.

According to Kanade, "My first feature film Mahek looks at the world through the imaginative eyes of children and examines their rights. What children miss most is respect. Respect for them and respect for their imagination. For a child, a flower is as important as food, shelter and clothing. The education system in India could put more emphasis on aesthetics and philosophy."

Kanade is an alumnus in film direction from the Film and Television Institute of India in Pune who also completed the Producers Program from UCLA. His thesis film Chaitra won Three National Film Awards and two National Awards at MIFF. It was included in a special DVD release: Master Strokes- 20 First Films from 45 year history of FTII. Mahek is his first feature film.