Filmmaker Vinay Shukla’s documentary While We Watched, that includes news anchor Ravish Kumar, has bagged an award at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
The film, titled Namaskar! Main Ravish Kumar in Hindi, received the Amplify Voices Award at the not too long ago concluded film gala, the press launch from the makers said.
Other winners of the Amplify Voices Award included Nisha Pahuja’s To Kill a Tiger for greatest Canadian characteristic and Martika Ramirez Escobar’s Leonore Will Never Die.
While We Watched is described as a turbulent newsroom drama that intimately chronicles the working days of broadcast journalist Ravish Kumar as he navigates a spiralling world of fact and disinformation.
“Through the lens of its protagonist – a person clinging onto integrity at the same time as every part falls aside – ‘While We Watched’ urges the viewer to contemplate their very own accountability and culpability as news and media come underneath higher scrutiny than ever earlier than, Vinay’s upcoming film delivers the promise of a daring, well timed, and globally related documentary,” the official description learn.
Vinay Shukla’s debut characteristic An Insignificant Man, chronicling the rise of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), was additionally screened at the celebrated film competition in 2016.
“I hope this film provides you hope on days while you want it” – Vinay Shukla, Director of While We Watched. Winner of the Amplify Voices Award at #TIFF22 pic.twitter.com/ZbpSCjdlPB
— While We Watched / नमस्कार मैं रवीश कुमार (@WhileWeWatched) September 18, 2022
The filmmaker mentioned journalists are the “foremost storytellers of our time”.
“I spent two years in Ravish’s newsroom, watching him construct his every day broadcast. Ravish and his staff would get some tales proper, some tales simply about. Watching him, I spotted that for each report that we see on the news, the journalist behind the report pays a value – an emotional, monetary, moral and psychological value.
“No story is straightforward, each story is private. This film is about that private value that journalists pay to do their job proper. My film would apply to any journalist who has stood their floor and chosen to file a narrative which was true to their beliefs. This film is my love letter to journalism,” Shukla mentioned in an announcement.
While We Watched is a UK manufacturing and is produced by LONO Studio and BRITDOC Films.