This time MIP has been good for India. First, documentary makers duo Harry Amarpal Singh and Rishi Rana Bharadwaj bagged an international pitch at MIPDOC, and now Miditech CEO Nikhil Alva's been invited to be on the jury of the AIDS programming pitch, backed by the United Nations, at the ongoing MIPTV.

Alva was one of the members of the panel of internationally known broadcasters and producers who comprised the jury that had to select the best of the short film and long documentary pitches presented.

We met up with him after the awards were given out for his take on the pitch,the participants and the award.

Excerpts:

How would you rate the pitches that were made today?
Each production house had an interesting idea. They were from different cultures, and each had potential in its own way. But ultimately, we had to choose the one that would be most practical to translate into reality.

What were the criteria on which the pitches were judged?
There were three criteria on which they were judged - creativity, practicality and potential of the project.

And how did the winners match up to the criteria?
In both cases - the short and the long format - the stories were very original, and both had partial funding in place, which was also important. Reed will be providing only the seed money for the project.

In the case of Pyra Media's short film from Egypt, it's a powerful story that breaks through the clutter, has strong female characters and coming from a region that has not had many such films on HIV-infected persons in the past, we thought it deserved a chance. In the case of long format film, Article Z (the production company), we were floored by the sheer creativity of the idea. And then, it helped that they had a chunk of the funding ready too.