Granny’s Monster Machines
Bilingual Bengali-English animation film
Scripted by Rohini Chowdhury and Rezaul Kabir
In association with Chocolate Films, Little Angel Theatre and House of Illustration.
This film was created as part of Pop Up Fusion, an animation project launched by Pop Up Festival of Stories to increase bilingualism amongst schoolchildren in London.
As translator and storyteller with the project team, Rohini worked with actor and theatre professional Rezaul Kabir to conduct several Bengal-English workshop sessions with a group of primary-school children and their parents. Drawing upon the rich traditions of Bengali folklore, and using storytelling and theatre techniques, Rohini and Rez helped the children and their parents to create and develop an original story for the purpose of animation.
Rohini wrote the English script for the animation, and together with Rez, facilitated its translation into Bengali by the workshop participants; both the English and Bengali scripts have been used in the final animation, the former as subtitles, and the latter as voice-over.
The film was runner up as the Best Youth Film in the Lab Film Festival, London, 2013.