Frimmel and Covi's minimalistic offering 'La Pivellina' (The Little One) won the Jury Grand Prize at the recently concluded Mumbai International Film Festival.

Frimmel, who hails from Austria and Covi from Italy, said they were motivated by the craft of Satyajit Ray and neo-realistic directors, particularly from India and Italy of Ray's time, shunning big budget shooting.

The directors, who believe that it is important to be "minimalistic to portray reality around" said they greatly appreciated Indian filmmakers like Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Adoor Gopalkrishnan. PTI