“My name is Sarath Chandra and I am the first Telugu person to win an Emmy Award in 2021 for a 1-minute video – DOMESTIC PEACE.

My interests, right from school age in drama, skits, filmmaking and later winning an Emmy award has been a rollercoaster ride. I come from a family where my parents are Professors and my sister, a bank manager. So, there was a bit of pressure within myself. I joined engineering at Andhra University and making short films was quite a task. I started everything on my own in my final year. After this phase of my life, I started freelancing for content writing, editing and currently. I do digital marketing at Housefull Digital.

However, my true passion always remains film making and to achieve this I’ve been exploring and travelling, observing all the different styles from various places like Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai and Pune.

My thoughts and ideas regarding Emmy started during my college and this is my fourth attempt. So far, I have made 50 short films covering various genres. For the first time in the 2017 Emmy Awards, they’ve put an open application, no eligibility restrictions and launched the 1 minute video category. I’ve begun in 2018, the next time I’ve made it with a whole team and secured 4th position. I lost hope and the last time I wanted to try and the topic was ‘Stand up for Peace, Men and Women unite for change’. I thought of keeping the video simple (Domestic Peace) and that’s what made me win.

There were different rounds in this process and the ceremony was not online. It was in New York and the officials appointed to me took care of me and helped me throughout.

On the day of the ceremony, everything was going well until I saw Nawazuddin Siddiqui, my all-time inspiration and I was excited the minute I saw him. I narrated a story and we had fun, clicked pictures and exchanged thoughts. This was the most memorable moment for me that happened there and was captured for a lifetime. My future aim is to strive hard in film making and make it a success.”