PITTSBURGH (PTTP) – This past weekend was the 95th annual Academy Awards, and it was a very special one for us here at the University of Pittsburgh.
Pitt senior Aditi Sridhar was fortunate enough to present multiple awards at the Oscars last Sunday. After completing an internship with Warner Bros, she was nominated to apply for the Academy Gold program. This led her to the unreal opportunity to present at the Academy Awards on Sunday.
“Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect going into it. I knew that we would have an opportunity to be on stage for at least one of the categories and present an award, but when I got there we went through a couple of rehearsals and I realized that I was going to be on stage for multiple awards, including Best Picture which was very exciting,” Sridhar states.
The Academy Gold Program helps to develop young filmmakers’ skills and helps them create connections, helping give them opportunities in the film industry.
“The Academy Gold Program that gave me this opportunity gave us so much to learn from from the entire experience.”
The Oscars are one of the largest events for filmmakers in the entire world, but when asked about the challenges that come with being on that large of a stage, Sridhar was up for the challenge.
“There was so much synergy in that room, and honestly you stop looking at celebrities as celebrities and start looking at them as people and seeing how impacted they were when they won awards or even when they were nominated for awards, so to see how much their artistic craft means to them just made me more inspired to do my own work and hopefully one day get to go back there.”
Sridhar is currently working on a new short film named Aloo Poori, a very personal story for her, rooting itself in South Asian American culture. For more information on her new short film, you can head over to their Instagram page @aloopoorifilm, or their website https://seedandspark.com/fund/aloo-poori#story.