If you told a seven-year-old boy who made a DIY projector to screen anime clips onto a chawl wall that he would receive an international filmmaking grant, he might have just adjusted his lens. But for Vikrant Patankar, serendipity has always been the co-pilot.

Raised in a modest Mumbai chawl where his parents worked in healthcare, Patankar’s entry into cinema wasn’t born out of film sets or privileged connections. It started at age four, when a trip to a cinema hall left him spellbound by the dark room, the light strips, and the smell of popcorn.