It's 6:32 pm. The people are just gathering in. There's an excitement in the air in anticipation of the first community video oscars or "Coscars". Stalin and Jessica are up on stage - they seem as excited to be able to give the awards as the producers are about getting awards.

Manji bhai comes up on stage. In his characteristic spaced-out style he stands looking around. He doesn't say a word and when everybody is intrigued enough to keep quiet, he starts singing. He is one of the most exuberant presenters I have seen on stage - he loves being with people, and fame has it that he can mobilize communities with a well-timed song. While he sings, Stalin is dancing on stage and people are egging him on with chants of "Lage raho Manjibhai", a take on the very popular hindi movie song - Lage raho Munnabhai. A talented person being appreciated by a discerning audience should be one of the most natural sights but in caste-ridden India the natural is not neccessarily common, which is why this sight touches my heart.

Next on stage comes Ranjan - from Navsarjan's Videoshala CVU, called Bhim Videoshala. She introduces herself in a self-effacing way and in sharp contrast to her introduction, starts sloganeering in her strong rustic voice.

Chua choot par halla bol (Speak up about untouchability) Ched chaad par halla bol (Speak up about eve-teasing) Nijikaran par halla bol (Speak up about privatization) Moodivaad par halla bol (Speak up about fundamentalism) Arrey darta kyu hai - halla bol. (Why are you scared - speak up!)

As she talks about all the forces that keeps the common man subdued, everybody chants along with her.

Somebody at the back starts hollering "Har taraf - video unit" (In every direction, you can see the video unit!). I turn back to see who it is. It's impossible to find out because everybody is singing it now. Everybody is in such a self-congratulatory mode that I doubt if they need any awards to tell them how far they have come. I can't believe these are people who came from the most marginalized communities and did not have a voice till now. Their self-assured manner talks about the pride they have in the CVU's and how it has helped them.

Stalin's voice is now booming - "Welcome to the first community video Oscars. We had very tough competition in deciding these awards. We had to watch around 70 films to come up with this"

Best screening The most important part of the community video movement is the screening. Each video is screened in 25 villages. All the movies are screened back in the same community. The reason this is important is because it allows the people, especially the daughters and women to come out and share their stories.

Jessica is called upon to give the award to "Apna Malak Maa" - the CVU with the best community rallying techniques. The first ever all-dalit team comes up to receive the awards. As it is the first recognition of their efforts, their faces are glowing. The award is given to Girish, credited with going around to different villages organizing rallies. When "apna malak maa" started, they started in 25 of the most dangerous villages where atrocities against dalits have been reported. Today they have managed to create meaningful dialogues between the "so-called" upper and the lower castes. The "so-called" lower castes are still sitting on the floor during the screenings. However, the group claims that in a few more years even that distinction would end. This group has also managed to ensure that the women in their team get the same freedom as the men. All team members irrespective of gender go to the villages at night for the screenings, and this too in surendranagar district, one of the most feudal areas of Gujarat. These people redefine courage for me - Knowing the very real physical fear of being killed or raped and still being able to go out to these places is what I call courage.

Best anchor VV as a part of their 18 month training, teaches the community producers anchoring skills. Most of the video magazines have community producer anchoring a piece. In addition to providing a narrative thread like the vidusha (ancient name for a storyteller) of ancient times or the sutradhaar(a modern version of a storyteller) of our times, there is another reason why community producers are encouraged to anchor. Talking confidently and articulately about issues makes these anchors local role-models.

Mehul is called upon to give the award to "Apna TV" after 10 minutes of heart-stopping talk between Stalin and him regarding the blank result sheets! The producers strode up on stage confidently and there is not a cinch of a doubt as to why they got the award. Like Stalin said "Bade bade log camera ke aage darr jaate hai (The most accomplished people shy from coming in front of the camera) So it's immensely heartening to see these people exhibiting absolutely no fear" Mehul added that their confidence might stem from the fact that they are from an urban CVU.

Best still photography A picture is said to be worth a thousand words. And for community video producers, it is very important that they be able to think visually and communicate their ideas to the audience. It is especially important for non-literate communities.

Bhawana was called upon stage to give the award. As Stalin said, she is the correct person to give it as she is herself a very talented and joshili (enthusiastic) photographer - just check out her facebook account for proof! The award went to the newest set of producers from Jal Chitran from the picturesque state of Rajasthan.

One of the female producers from from Jal Chitran shared a beautiful song on the occassion - "Yeh sama, sama hai yeh pyaar ka" Venky took this opportunity to exhibit some lafandarbaazi. And Stalin retorts that next year they would give out awards for the worst rogues and that Venky and he would be the competitors.

Best camera Before giving out this award, Stalin a very conspiratorial tone talked about the various kind of shots and angles perfected by the CVU's. "Apna Malak Maa" has come up with the zoom-in shot - zooooooooooom in and then move the camera so that the world seems to be crashing down on its head. Another shot perfected by all CVU's is the paintbrush shot - just move the camera from left to right and back and then back again. The third favorite shot is the still where nothing moves - the person and the camera are at a face-off and we just have to wait to see who blinks first.

As Stalin was responsible for the creative camera workshop during the camp, everybody thought it fit to ask him to give out this award. The award went to Manyam Praja - an Andhra Pradesh based CVU whose camerawork keeps you spellbound. The interns from Australia and UK who have been working with these team for the past 2 months cheered wildly for them.

Best editing Documentary film making is a tough task. Amongst all the tasks we teach, editing is one of the toughest especially to those who have never even seen a computer before. Anil, one of our trainers had some very interesting anecdotes to share. He talked about his experiences with Manyam Praja Video, the all-Tribal CVU whom he lived with and trained for 18 months.

"The producers here were seeing a keyboard and a computer for the first time. I tried to teach them about control-V. Every day they would come back saying they had forgotten how to do it. It was frustrating till I hit upon an idea to make a picture of a keyboard with words in their language. I asked the producers to look at these pictures the moment they came into the class. It was a tactic born out of frustration, but it worked very well"

Today this technique is being used across all CVU's. The award was given to Chetana TV who manage to make 8 films in a month. This is quite a record as the rest of the CVU's take close to 3 months to come up with 1 video magazine. Another important reason is that Chetana TV focuses on cable TV.

Best fiction Usually our CVU's create documentary movies. However some of them do use fiction. The videoshaala project is focussed on videos for children from the 4th to the 8th standard. Since a documentary format would bore children, we use dramatized versions for filming. The content is taken out of school textbooks. Some of the topics which have been covered are democracy, swaraj etc.

Manish, our queiet and incredibly effective trainer was called upon to give this award to Videoshaala.

Best impact A CVU is geared towards creating impact - it's the prime purpose of their existence. Every video magazine has an action point which we hope would encourage people to act and change their life. We want at-least 2 people at every screening who would follow through on the "call to action" of the film, i.e., actually take the action the film talks about. It takes almost 7-8 weeks to follow up and we usually have to follow up on the follow up.

Sapna was called upon to give this award to Samvaad. This CVU works in the urban areas where it is difficult to capture the audience in the mornings. So they do screenings in the day time only to women and in the night on projectors to the whole community. The producers when called upon stage wished to thank two people - Yasmeen their coordinator who could not make it and Kathleen, a volunteer from the States who has been working relentlessly for the past 3 months on creating more meaningful impacts.

Best online video As we go forward, we hope to have a powerful online presence. It's the way to get connected to a wider world, it's our vision that our ch19 would provide the platform to connect marginalized communities to the mainstream. We hope that our producers can upload their videos directly. However very few have actually been doing it themselves because of bad internet access and slow speed.

Namita was called upon to give this award to Hamari Awaz - Yuva who have been consistently uploading their videos onto the net. They are the CVU who have embraced new technology and we are very glad.

The coscars ended with Stalin and Jessica being given a standing ovation. They talked about how this year it has just been community producers who have been trained by VV who were called for the awards. However, from next year onwards we hope to invite other community producers who are active in the field of community video.