Naseeruddin Shah and Vikrant Massey's short film, Half Full, in the race for India's Oscar entry

Naseeruddin Shah and Vikrant Massey’s short film titled Half Full is expected to be in the race to win the coveted Academy Award after a victory at the ShortsTV’s Best of India Short Film Festival 2019. According to Indo-Asian News Service (IANS), another short  Counterfeit Kunkoo , directed by Reema Sengupta and starring Kani Kusruti and Vijay Varma, also received the same award. [caption id=“attachment_5764871” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Naseeruddin Shah. Image from Twitter/httweets[/caption] “The fact that it turned out to be a good film is what matters to me more than any award. I guess it (winning the award) is of great importance to get the film high profile…to make sure it gets seen, so naturally, I am happy about it. This way the film will gain a lot of attention,” Shah told IANS. Helmed by Karan Rawal, Half Full is a 12 minute long short that focuses on a young man undergoing some internal conflict. IANS writes, “One night, he encounters an old man and a strange vibe develops between the two, throwing up some sarcastic and vague questions.” Shah told IANS that he enjoyed working on the shot. He said that the film story is very effective and makes its point cleverly. The actor was last seen in Vivek Agnihotri-directed The Tashkent Files , based on the mysterious death of India’s second Prime Minister, Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1966. Mithun Chakraborty, Pankaj Tripathi, Mandira Bedi, Vinay Pathak and Prakash Belawadi were also a part of the cast. The Tashkent Files was recently screened at the  Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. In July, the film completed a 100-day run at the Indian box office, becoming the second feature to do so after Uri: The Surgical Strike , starring Vicky Kaushal and Yami Gautam. Massey was last seen in Amazon’s web show  Made in Heaven and Hotstar’s Criminal Justice . His upcoming projects include  Dolly Kitty Aur Woh Chamakte Sitare  with Konkona Sen Sharma and Bhumi Pednekar as well as Chhapaak  alongside Deepika Padukone.