Priest's short film bags two international awards

An Indian priest's 35-minute short film has bagged two international awards in US.

'The Last Appeal' written, directed and produced by Fr. Bala Shoury Udumala of Vijayawada Diocese won the "Official Finalist Award" in the Las Vegas International Film Festival 2009.

Fr. Bala Udumala holds a Master's degree in Film and Television Production from Loyola Mary Mount University in Los Angeles.

Udumala's movie also won "The Silver Palm Award" in the Mexico International Film Festivals.

About 2000 films from over 50 countries represented at each of these film festivals.

The film portrays the true story of a peasant girl, Helen Kowalska who later becomes a nun in a convent in Poland.

The film brings out vividly the struggle Helen went through in the process of being a messenger for God at the beginning of the 20th century.

Besides English and Spanish, the film has been dubbed into several Indian languages.

The Hindi version was recently released in Mumbai by Cardinal Oswald Gracias and Telugu version by Bishop Prakash Mallavarapu in Vijayawada.

In the US, the film is being distributed by Vision Video, a Protestant company that has distributed films like Bella, The Nativity Story.