“I feel very fortunate that my films, writing, research and teaching have been recognised in National awards. This reflects the great teams I’ve been lucky to be part of”

In 2022, the multi-media interactive website Ethics for Making won the “Emerging Media” award from the British Association of Film, Television & Screen Studies (BAFTSS).

“An invaluable and detailed set of interactive resources on the ethics of filmmaking” Judging Panel.

In 2016 the British Association of Film and TV Screen Studies (BAFTSS) awarded Pratap a BAFTSS Practice Research Award for the documentary Justine.  

Screen Works Peer reviews for observational documentary film “Justine” 

“The design of the tool is also inherently ethical, as it shifts the user from a polarised view of right/wrong to a more nuanced approach coming from the truth of lived experience. This multi-faceted perspective offers up opportunities for diverse criticality.”

“Rughani’s view of the documentary film format as a subject matter is argued persuasively and this is used well as provocation and as example through the project. The inevitable tensions in a nuanced view of ethics, that right and wrong become relative and slippery concepts, are dealt with in the careful construction and the open and critical debate that the site provides. We are left with what is intended, that becoming aware of the deeper values in a lived experience leads us to a new appreciation of diversity through our interaction with the materials here.”

“This is a highly professional and convincing practice pedagogy submission that deftly marries theoretical discourse, aesthetic sensibility and social awareness. The work asks the reader to watch the 26-minute documentary ‘Justine’ (made by the author), which provides a portrait of the eponymous girl, her crucial social care, and her family’s response to her special needs…

Where consent, and by extension the agency of the ‘subject’, is problematised, the work is strongest in developing an ambiguity around how the earlier images are captured; in combination with direct engagement later they either drift towards didacticism or strip away some of the discourse.

This being said, the film is beautifully and sensitively wrought, with good production values and editing. The accompanying website, encouraging viewers/readers to engage with the ethic quandary connected to this (and other) material, is clear, relevant and highly timeous given the state of ‘austerity’-era social care.”

BAFTTS peer reviews.

The film was also awarded a Best Shorts (USA) merit award in 2014.

In 2001, “Playing Model Soldiers”, film 2 of the Channel 4 series “New Model Army” won the Race In the Media (RIMA) Award in the TV Factual category  (written and directed by Rughani). The film was selected for festivals at the National Museum of Film and Photography, the Blackscreen Film Festival and the Watershed Cinema. Films 1 & 2 were shortlisted for the 2001 Grierson Award.

The films were extensively reviewed in national UK media. 

 

 

 

In 1996 “Gardeners In Eden” co-directed with Brian Leith (as part of the BBC series “Africa’s Big Game”) won Best of Festival in the Missoula Environmental Film Festival,.

In 1992 he was runner-up in The Observer newspaper’s Young Travel Writer awards for his account of a journey through the newly independent state of Kyrghyzstan.

In 1988 he won a German Embassy journalism award for his examination of Berlin’s education of migrant Turks.

For teaching:

2016	Awarded UAL Teaching Scholar (2016-18)
2015	Elected Vice-Chair of UK National Teaching Fellows’ Association
2013	Higher Education Academy, UK. National Teaching Fellowship Award (NTFS)
2012	University of Arts London (UAL) teaching award for contribution to key strategic vision of UAL including writing & leading new MA in Documentary Film

For research:

2010	AHRC Network Grant, as co-investigator of bid to develop Moving Image Research Network, culminating in the launch of a new peer-reviewed academic journal; Moving Image Research Art Journal (MIRAJ, launched April 2012)
2010	The University of the Arts Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN), Associate Award for film development.
2009	Pedagogic Research Funding for developing new MA curriculum, UAL
2007	Small Grant, funding for The Botanist film installation, UAL

For JOURNALISM:

1992	“The Observer” Young Travel Writer award for investigation “Lake Issyk Kul”
1988	German Embassy Journalism Prize for writing on race and education in Berlin.

For PUBLIC SERVICE:

2009	Art Works People Award, ‘for contributing to the success of work in widening participation’.