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While We Watched
A Spiraling World of Truth and Disinformation
Speakers
94 mins | Hindi with English subtitles | 2022 | India
Director | Vinay Shukla
Producer | Vinay Shukla, Khusboo Ranka and Luke Moody
Famous for his unflinching takedowns of the ruling establishment during his long-running primetime news hour, Ravish Kumar was a regular fixture, beaming from TV sets and widely shared phone videos. His primetime news bulletin characterized by solid research, verified evidence and vignette-style notes from the field, are a far cry from the new industry standard of high-decibel, polarizing, blustering TV news debates.
As press freedom in India disintegrates and self-censorship becomes the new normal, Ravish struggles to stay afloat in the rising tide of his network’s financial hardships, sinking TRP ratings, and the strain of continuous downsizing. Deteriorating standard of public discourse finds Ravish at the receiving end of harassment, intimidation, morphed images, threats to his life and even violence against his family.
With a growing target on his back, and the looming threat of his network’s imminent closure, Ravish transforms from a spunky troublemaker into a deeply troubled man, worried for himself, his family, and the soul of his nation.
Post the screening of the film, Dhanya Rajendran and Swati will be in conversation with Director Vinay Shukla & Ravish Kumar (joining us online). A Q&A with the audience will follow.
In collaboration with:
Speakers
Vinay Shukla
Vinay Shukla’s internationally acclaimed debut feature, An Insignificant Man (co-directed with Khushboo Ranka) set a new anti- censorship precedent, and went on to become the most theatrically successful documentary film in India. His short film Bureaucracy Sonata (2011), won the HBO Best Short Film Award at the South Asian International Film Festival in 2012.
His work has attracted distinguished partnerships with Sundance, DocSociety, NFDC India, Asian Network of Documentaries, IDFA, and IDFA Bertha. His work has been previously celebrated at Warsaw Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, BFI London, Sheffield Doc/Fest, among other leading festivals in the world.
Ravish Kumar
Ravish Kumar is an Indian journalist, author, and a prominent media personality. He was the Senior Executive Editor of NDTV India, and hosted the channel’s flagship weekday show ‘Prime Time’. Ravish has received the highly prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2019. He is also a two time recipient of the Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Award, the Gauri Lankesh Award for Journalism, the first Kuldip Nayar Journalism Award, and the Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Award for Hindi Journalism and Creative Literature.
A household name in India, Ravish has transitioned to digital reporting, amassing over 6.6 million subscribers on YouTube, and 4.1 million followers on Instagram. His signature reports – thoroughly researched, fact-driven, charming and poetically written – are instantly recognisable and widely shared. In recent years, Ravish has come under heavy fire for not falling in line with the changing news landscape.
Dhanya Rajendran
Dhanya Rajendran is co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of The News Minute, a digital publication that covers south India. In a journalism career spanning 20 years, Dhanya has a body of work focussing on politics, human rights, gender-based violence, and disaster coverage. She was the recipient of the Chameli Devi Jain award for best woman journalist of India in 2022 and named one of the best entrepreneurs in the country in Fortune’s 40 under 40 list.
Dhanya is the founding chairperson of Digipub, India’s largest association of digital news outlets that has around 120 members including sites like The Wire, Scroll, Quint and Newslaundry. Dhanya runs a feminist and diverse newsroom based out of Bengaluru with offices across south India. Before founding The News Minute, Dhanya worked as the South India head for the English news channel Times Now.
Swati Dandekar
Swati Dandekar is a documentary filmmaker and a film educator based in Bangalore, India, with a special interest in creating visual narratives of the living history around her, of people, places, ideas, traditions, practices, and the continuous process of change. In addition, she has been closely involved with designing media for education. As a founder trustee of Vikalp Bengaluru, she has been actively screening documentary films and curating festivals in Bangalore city for over fifteen years. Swati heads the Film programme at the Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore.
