Oscars 2022: Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh were nominated for their documentary 'Writing With Fire' for Best Documentary Feature.
At the 94th Academy Awards, the Indian documentary Writing With Fire lost out to the American documentary '‘Summer of Soul ( Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)’ in the Best Documentary Feature category. Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh were nominated for their debut documentary feature about a newspaper 'Khabar Lahariya' which started as a social experiment by an NGO.
Summer of Soul is based on the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival held at Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park) in Harlem and lasted for six weeks. It was attended by legendary American pop stars such as Stevie Wonder, The Staple Singers, Mahalia Jackson, The 5th Dimension, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and others. The documentary investigates why the event is considered as obscure in pop culture.
Coming to 'Writing With Fire', the feature documentary captures the newspaper's switch from print to digital in recent years. It follows how its Chief reporter Meera and her journalists break traditions, redefining what it means to be powerful by reporting India's biggest issues and within the confines of their own homes, questioning notions of patriarchy and redefining power, investigating local police-force incompetence, listening in and standing by victims of caste and gender violence.
'Khabar Lahariya' is India's only rural newspaper run by Dalit women since 2002, started by Delhi-based NGO Nirantar from Chitrakoot in the Bundelkhand region. It is published across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar in rural dialects of Hindi, including Bundeli and Awadhi. 'Writing with Fire' previously also won 28 international awards including Sundance Film Festival in January, where it won two awards: Special Jury (Impact for Change) and Audience awards at the World Cinema Documentary competition.
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‘Ascension’, ‘Attica’, and ‘Flee’ were the other nominees in this category at the 94th Academy Awards.
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