Cognition director on turning the record-breaking short into a feature film, working for the BBC, and his Bollywood dream
- Ravi Ajit Chopra’s short film Cognition has won more than 400 awards, and now he’s making it into a full-length feature film
- He recalls his youth, living above a video shop, his dream of directing a Bollywood film and being a ‘movie nerd’
Wall space must be a problem in Ravi Ajit Chopra’s house.
Chopra is the director of a monster-hit-in-waiting: the forthcoming feature-film version of science-fiction spectacular Cognition. And it will arrive with an impressive pedigree.
Cognition already exists as a history-making “short”. Starring Andrew Scott and Jeremy Irvine, it has so far amassed no fewer than 400 awards worldwide since its 2020 release, making it the most decorated live action fictional short film, as recognised by Guinness World Records. And all those framed certificates have to hang somewhere.
“It’s 400 awards at the moment, but a couple of other film festivals have been in contact, so it might go up a couple more,” says Chopra with a modest laugh. “But that’s enough really.”
All that attention might become the norm. “The Cognition feature film will be something really quite ambitious,” says Chopra, on a video call from near London – which itself features prominently in the first film in the shape of the derelict (now restored) Battersea Power Station.
