Indian Priest’s film wins Award, gets aired on EWTN

(April 13, 2010) An Indian priest’s film has won two International Prestigious Awards in the United States. A 35-minute short film called “The Last Appeal” written, directed and produced by Fr. Bala Shoury Udumala of Vijayawada Diocese, Andhra Pradesh State, was aired last Sunday (April 11) on the largest Catholic Channel, EWTN, Eternal Word Television Network. The Las Vegas International Film Festival 2009, awarded the director the “Official Finalist Award” this month in Las Vegas. The Mexico International Film Festivals has also awarded “The Silver Palm Award” for the film in the Student Category. About 2000 films from over 50 countries, were represented at each of these film festivals.
Fr. Bala Udumala graduated in Masters from Loyola Mary Mount University in Los Angeles in Film and Television Production in 2008. The film portrays the true story of a peasant girl, Helen, who later becomes a nun in a convent in Poland. The film brings out vividly the struggle Helen Kowalska went through in the process of delivering Christ’s message of mercy through the humble life of a nun in Poland at the beginning of the 20th century.
Besides English and Spanish, the film has been dubbed into several Indian languages. The Gujarvani production of Gujarat has already dubbed the film into Hindi and Telugu. The Hindi version was recently released in Mumbai by Cardinal Oswald Gracias and the Telugu version by Bishop Prakash Mallavarapu in Vijayawada.