Winners revealed for 'Search for Stars' by FFI and presented by David & Goliath Films

Search for Stars® was an effort by FFI to reach out, seek and identify untapped talent and catalyse its gainful employment within the industry by creating a platform present it to potential employers within the Indian Industry.

It has become an iconic activity which is an asset for the Indian film industry, to discover new talent to enrich the Industry; and consequently enhance the talent's potential through effective skilling measures.

"Well 'Search for Stars' aimed to reinvigorate the whole system! Digital medium is not just the future; it is very much the present and it is here to stay! What we have seen through the phases of this unique platform is the sheer passion in these aspiring actors which is remarkable. I am glad our avenue was able to reach out to untapped talents from every corner of India. Congratulations to the winners," said Firdausul Hasan, President of Film Federation of India.

The panel of five judges entrusted with the selection of the winner and runner-ups from the finalists were:

Rahul Rawail (Director), Lal Bhatia (Filmmaker), Sushma Siromoni (Actor), Tanusree Chakraborty (Actor) and Arijit Dutta (Actor).

A comprehensive and rigorous internal selection process was adopted and 12 finalists were selected from the multitude of entries, namely: Nilanjan Ghosh, Geeta Devi Sharma, Bharat Chandra Basistha, Rewati Lepcha, Shashi Kala Pradhan, Rupsha Chatterjee, Aakansha Singh, Shivenn Sharma, Rajan Bharatkumar Vyas, Barsha Chettri, Anisha Prashan, and Trishala Tamang.

From among the contestants, it was decided in a simple majority by the Judges that Rupsha Chatterjee from Kolkata was the winner while Bharat Chandra Basistha from Sikkim and Rajan Vyas from Gujarat were the first and second runners up respectively.

Earlier, Film Federation of India has enabled the choice of language for participants to 13 languages viz. Hindi, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telegu, Bengali, Odiya, Assamese and Nepali.

"Search for Stars welcomed any contestant to act in their preferred language right from their audition stage; this way we got to groom them up and in the process we reached out to a diverse range of untapped talent from all over the country, who can make a difference on the silver screen for years to come. We hope in future editions we can take this forward from strength to strength." Hasan added.

Search for Stars® has truly ushered a digital revolution in the realm of acting talents across Indian Cinema.

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