The Telly Awards, one of the largest honours covering video and television across all screens unveiled the winners of its 47th annual competition.
India’s Charuvi Design Labs (CDL) has won bronze in the general-animation: short form (under 40 minutes) category for animated short Narasimha Awakens: The Legend of Prahlad, during this year’s event. It is a short 3D animated art film that reimagines a foundational Indian myth for a global audience, through an unexpected point of view.
“To receive a bronze at the 47th Annual Telly Awards for Narasimha Awakens: The Legend of Prahlad is deeply meaningful to me as a filmmaker. Created in just 45 days, the film was a labour of design, devotion, and relentless detail. Rooted in Indian mythology, India-centric art styles, and crafted through cinematic 3D storytelling, every frame was shaped with faith and intent from the poetry conceived in-house to the visual world brought alive by our team at CDL,” CDL founder and creative director Charuvi Agrawal told Animation Xpress.
For her it was a humbling moment to see a story born from our culture resonate on a global platform such a big number of entries from across the globe. This recognition reminded her team that “deeply rooted Indian stories, when told with sincerity and conviction, can travel far beyond borders.”
Narasimha Awakens: The Legend of Prahlad has been travelling to film festivals ahead of its availability on any of the platforms. It was first privately screened at Brussels, Belgium.
The official synopsis reads: Rooted in the Hindu legend of Prahalad, a young prince whose devotion to the divine remains unwavering, the story unfolds under the shadow of his father, the tyrant king Hiranyakashipu. In the original myth, Vishnu manifests as Narasimha, a fierce half-man, half-lion form to protect the child and bring an end to the king’s reign of terror.
This film shifts the lens to the oppressors: the forces within the tyrant’s court who repeatedly attempt to break Prahalad’s faith. We are drawn into a paranoid, crumbling world where power is absolute, yet constantly threatened by a child’s quiet, unshakable belief. As the machinery of control intensifies, fear begins to consume those who wield it. Visually, the film merges mythic symbolism with contemporary, tactile environments blurring the boundary between legend and lived reality.
Ultimately, Narasimha Awakens: The Legend of Prahalad is a meditation on power, fear, and inner conviction. It pays tribute to the resilience of the human spirit, suggesting that moral clarity can endure even the most violent attempts to silence it until something deeper, older, and more primal finally awakens.
The Telly Awards reported nearly 14,000 entries this season, the most in the award’s history, and a six per cent increase over last season, from creators, brands, and production companies spanning 55 countries. Every year, they receive entries from five continents and all 50 U.S. states.
All work entered in The Telly Awards is reviewed by the Telly Awards judging council. The diverse judging body of over 250 executives from television networks, production companies, global agencies, immersive content studios, and streaming platforms around the world by industry leaders from companies like Shutterstock, Marvel, BBC, Netflix and more.
