All her films are about feelings. Worried about the film industry in Mozambique, Prata says, “Mozambique comes out with only two to three films each year.” Her film displaying fantastic realism, Prata changed the sad ending from the novel in order to sustain hope in the hearts of her audience.

She puts all her strength in her actors. For most of the actors in the film this was their first film. She adds jokingly, “Most of the time was spent asking the actors not to look at the camera.” She found the lead character of her movie, a boy whom she calls a miracle, three days before the shooting. 10-years- old, the actor is very mature for his age. Having studied music for a long time, she says, “The knowledge helps me decide the music in my movies and makes my movies more fluid.”

Here in Pune, she is discovering India each day and is also inspired by everything that she is seeing. The lady has received a scholarship to study in Germany. Prata spent her childhood in Mozambique and studied music in Brazil. She later studied filmmaking in Berlin.

Saad Hendawy (Egypt)
Since 2004, when he made his first film, Saad Hendawy has made seven short films and six documentaries. He is inspired by Sufism and after conducting a long research on the subject he decided to make a movie that tells not only the story of love, relationships and secrets, but also tells the story of Sufism itself.

“The movie scenario in Egypt,” he says “is fairly moderate with only 40 to 45 commercial movies being released each year. Hendawy shot his movie Seventh Heaven during the time of Ramadan in old Cairo. The movie, is about the relationship between a lady and a male dancer. His films are not really commercial, they in fact cater to human interest and feelings. They are about the needs that one feels obliged to fulfill, needs of the body and the soul. Perhaps that is why his pictures have a spiritual touch to them.

His mother who was a fan of Indian movies made him fall in love with the dance and music in them. Drawing similarities between Indian and Egyptian movies Saad says, “Both India and Egypt have a very old culture and the stories that the films of each country tells is not dissimilar.”