Fresh off its award-winning premiere at the 2014 Melbourne Independent Filmmakers Festival, the music video “Stronger” is now available online at YouTube and right here! The video features the music and performance of international recording artist Prita Chhabra, who was joined at the film festival by the video’s director, Steven Shea of Abyssmal Entertainment.
The video won several awards, including Best Music Video, The Robert W. Kurrus Humanitarian Award, and the Director’s Choice for Best Film, which is voted on by the festival’s selected filmmakers. The video was a collaboration with the local Indian community of Brevard County, whose choreographed dancing is seen annually at Indiafest in Melbourne, Florida. Shea incorporated many of the dancers into the video to give it a Bollywood style. The fabulous opening celebration of the new Manav Mandir temple in Suntree also featured heavily in the imagery of the video.
“The whole experience was incredibly humbling,” says director Shea. “To produce a video starring an incredibly warm and loving community and be immersed in a culture which I’ve never experienced was fantastic. Then to have that video be recognized and rewarded by your peers at the film festival, well, it doesn’t get much better then that. Hopefully this video can continue to educate and inspire the South Asian community and everyone else.”
Prita Chhabra added: “It was an honor working with producer Terry Cronin and director Steven Shea on this project. I feel blessed to have met two amazing individuals who have such a passion for Indian culture and for my music. I am equally thankful to the Melbourne community and the members of the Manav Mandir temple for coming out and participating in this project. Everyone brought their own stories and talents to this video, and that is what really made this project shine in its own unique way. The video has given my song a new face and new meaning: We are all connected, and when we collaborate together, we are all stronger. It is possible to unite regardless of our cultural or religious beliefs and form a global community. This community effort resulted in a larger than life result, and it became bigger than anything I think any of us had envisioned. I hope to continue to be involved with music and projects that inspire many young girls, especially south Asians, to follow their dreams, and I hope they dream even bigger for themselves.”
The song “Stronger” is available for download on iTunes.
Check out Prita’s website at pritamusic.com and see more videos on her YouTube channel. Follow her on Facebook at facebook.com/pritarocks.