[19][20] It won the 70th National Film Awards for the year 2022 for best Documentary [21] The Timekeeper is about a man desperately seeks to preserve his lifelong passion for creating analog clocks in an era of digital totality.

[28] Nimisha Menon of Indie short magazine describes it saying "Sohil Vaidya weaves an emotional drama on the illegal trafficking that brings 15,000 people to the American shores as forced labourers, all through the eyes of Geeta.

Omeleto described it by saying that "Difficult People" is a unique and soulful film, whose singular nature emerges gently but confidently as the story unfurls and builds to a subtle and moving ending.

The short has a matter-of-fact, even offhand cultural specificity that captures an authentic sense of Mumbai, but at its heart, the arc concerns itself with an emotionally relatable, even universal story about family, love, identity and independence.

"[54] Nidhi Verma of Platform Magazine described it as " Difficult People deals insight-fully with a father-son relationship after the loss of the mother, the economic constraints of the middle class and the ambition of the artist to break free.

The story is deeply rooted in Bombay's cultural ethos, and yet universally highlights the complexity of loss, filial relationships and the difficulties of pursuing one's artistic ambitions.

The selection process for this class is highly competitive, with nine directors chosen from USC and assigned a script previously written by nine other writers in the preceding semester.