Indian documentary ‘Writing with Fire’ wins viewers award at Sundance Film Festival

By PTI
PARK CITY: “Writing with Fire”, an Indian movie chronicling the rise of Khabar Lahariya, India’s solely newspaper run by Dalit ladies, has received the viewers award within the World Cinema Documentary class on the Sundance Film Festival 2021.

The pageant, which began from January 28 and can shut on February 3, is introduced by Sundance Organisation, a nonprofit that discovers and helps unbiased artists, and introduces audiences to their work.

Audience Award: World Cinema Documentary goes to WRITING WITH FIRE directed by Rintu Thomas & Sushmit Ghosh. #Sundance pic.twitter.com/pypYE7V7cr
— SundanceFilmFestival (@sundancefest) February 3, 2021

According to the movie gala’s official web site, the digital award ceremony was remotely hosted by actor-comic Patton Oswalt on Tuesday evening.

“Writing with Fire”, which additionally marks the characteristic debut of administrators Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, follows this formidable group of Dalit ladies — led by their chief reporter, Meera — because the staff switches from print to digital with the intention to keep related.

Armed with smartphones and the braveness and conviction one have to be born with, they examine the incompetence of the native police pressure, hearken to and stand by victims of caste and gender violence, and problem long-standing, dangerous practices that result in injustice and intimidation.

Also edited and produced by Thomas and Ghosh, the movie received the particular jury award: influence for change within the World Cinema Documentary class as nicely.

“Writing with Fire” premiered within the World Cinema Documentary Competition phase, which celebrates 10 non-fiction characteristic movies from rising expertise world wide showcase a number of the most brave and extraordinary filmmaking at present.

“Fire in the Mountains”, directed by debutant Ajitpal Singh, was one other Indian title to be screened on the pageant.

The household drama, revolving round a mom who toils to economize to construct a street in a distant Himalayan village to take her wheelchair-bound son for physiotherapy however her husband believes {that a} shamanic ritual (Jagar) is the treatment, premiered within the World Cinema Dramatic Competition phase.

Previously, Indian titles resembling Prashant Nair’s “Umrika” (viewers award winner in 2015), Shonali Bose’s “Margarita With A Straw”, Neeraj Ghaywan’s “Masaan”, and Ritesh Batra’s “The Lunchbox” have obtained assist from Sundance.

The Institute was first impressed to create a devoted Screenwriters Lab in India after deciding on Batra for the 2009 Screenwriters and Directors Labs.

“The Lunchbox”, Batra’s characteristic debut, premiered at Semaine De La Critique on the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, went on to an acclaimed pageant run, together with Sarajevo, Telluride, and Toronto, and was acquired by Sony Pictures Classics.

The largest winner on the 2021 version of the Sundance Film Festival was “CODA” with 4 prizes within the US Dramatic Competition class: the grand jury prize, the directing prize, the viewers award and a particular jury prize for finest ensemble.

Directed by Sian Heder, “CODA” is a household drama centered on a highschool scholar who’s the kid of deaf adults.

It is the primary movie in Sundance historical past to win all three high prizes within the US Dramatic class.

“Summer Of Soul (Or, When The Revolution Could Not Be Televised),” the characteristic documentary directed by the Roots frontman Ahmir Thompson, received each the grand jury and viewers awards within the US Documentary Competition class.

Thompson, extra popularly recognized by his stage identify Questlove, organized the never-seen-before archival footage of the Harlem Cultural Festival, celebrating African American music and tradition, and selling Black satisfaction and unity, attended by 300,000 folks in the summertime of 1969.

Filmmaker Natalia Almada received the directing prize within the US Documentary Competition for “Users”, which explores parenting within the age of social media.

“Flee”, a largely animated documentary in regards to the lifetime of a homosexual Afghan refugee, earned the grand jury prize within the World Cinema Documentary Competition class; and “One for the Road”, a buddy street film about two associates touring by means of Thailand, earned a particular jury prize for inventive imaginative and prescient within the World Cinema Dramatic Competition class.

But the largest winner within the World Cinema Dramatic Competition was director Blerta Basholli’s “Hive” which earned three awards — the grand jury prize, viewers award, and directing award — one other Sundance report The movie follows a single mom struggling to outlive after her husband disappeared through the conflict in Kosovo.

The NEXT class awarded the viewers award to “My Belle, My Beauty”, directed by Marion Hill.

The movie follows a shock reunion in southern France reignites passions and jealousies between two ladies who have been previously polyamorous lovers.

Animated fantasy “Cryptozoo”, directed by Dash Shaw, bagged the innovator award.

The pageant screened 73 feature-length and 50 brief movies from greater than 14,000 submissions and showcased on-line through its custom-built on-line platform, in addition to in 28 Satellite Screen areas throughout the US.

Tabitha Jackson, director of Sundance Film Festival, stated this digital version of the movie gala held amid the continuing COVID-19 pandemic was as “real” as the ability of storytelling transcending all types of boundaries.

“This was not a ‘digital’ pageant, it was an actual pageant and the ability of those artists and their work was what made it so.

It has been a privilege to assist this work meet new audiences and enter the tradition with such fanfare, particularly now, when breaking by means of the noise is more durable than ever,” Jackson stated in a press release.