YEAR ENDER 2016-17

The time when curtains finally get drawn on the theatre of the 12 month arc, always becomes compelling as well as momentous.

It’s in these few days of the radiant circle of life, when reminiscing and looking back takes precedence in all minds; and therefore remembering things that had a significant impact on us, especially those things which influenced us in profound ways, becomes mandatory. So it is rather important for us at the Asian Centre for Entertainment Education (ACEE) where we strive to design concepts and to provide ideas to our friends in the industry of entertainment which is today one of the biggest repositories of contemporary cultures, and that has proliferated livelihoods across all sections of Indian cultures, languages and demographics; to make their works more relevant to and resonant with societies.

We worked with some of the best storytellers of the Indian industry of entertainment, like Mahesh Bhatt, Kalpana Lajmi, Ketan Mehta, Sudhir Mishra, Deepa Sahi, Deeya Singh, Suhail Tatari and Sanjay Tripathi and we facilitated their engagement with specialists, experts and social scientists like Dr Nikhil Datar, Dr Armida Fernandez, Dr Badhwar and others in the first three years i.e. 2013 to 2015, of having established ACEE’s flagship program The Third Eye which is in partnership with Hollywood Health and Society, Norman Lear Center, University of Southern California Annenberg.

The year 2016 was largely spent forging deep and long term relationships with foundations, institutions and organisations like the US Consulate General Mumbai, Children’s Film Society of India and Vigyan Prasar Government of India, the World Bank, Cinepolis Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation among others.

We also leveraged the creative alliance’ that we had forged in previous years through meetings, briefings, events and through sustained web engagement, to inspire creative communities to lean harder on research, and we spent time building on our knowledge, understanding and capacity to measure and evaluate the impact of the work done by the stalwart content creators whom we partner with upon the audiences whom they hold captive with their stories.

Some of the people who empowered us by sharing their expertise and immense experience with us, and whom I would specifically like to thank here are Marty Kaplan and Kate Folb at Hollywood Health and Society, Archna Vyas, Richa Shankar and Nushina Mir at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Victor Hugo Orozco, Christian Borja-Vega, Ariana Legovini, Jose Carlos Ferreyra, Laura Elena Costica at the World Bank and DIME, Dr Shravan Kumar from the Children’s Film Society of India, Nimish Kapoor from Vigyan Prasar, Lorena Fabiola Guille Laris, Arturo Cornejo Moreno Valle from Cinepolis Foundation, Adriana Cepeda from Cinepark Mexico, Devang Sampat and Ashish Shah from Cinepolis India.

All the writers at The Daily Eye (www.thedailyeye.info), ACEE’s news and information portal specifically targeted to creative communities, Rinki Roy Bhattacharya, Piroj Wadia, Deepa Gahlot, my colleagues at ACEE Deepa Bhalerao, Shiv Bhalla and Kopal Khanna along with myself, got together for the third consecutive year last fortnight to list the top most social entrepreneurs, actors, television serials and shows, campaigns, films and documentaries which stirred the status quo and impacted audiences and populations across India and the world.

With a special mention to the co-founder of ACEE, Augustine Veliath, who is the backbone of our organisation and who works tirelessly for children across India, I will take an exit here, and leave all of you to endorse and applaud the values that these stellar people, enterprises, shows and films that we have selected perpetuated this year, and because of which the discourse on various issues around health, environment and sustainable development that concern us, evolved as well as gained space in the mainstream.