Globally Feted Indian Doc Makers Mull Ways of Expressing Dissent at Cannes Market
variety.comNaman Ramachandran The cream of the current crop of young Indian documentary filmmakers were on fire during the annual Doc Day at the Cannes Film Market, discussing ways of expressing dissent within India’s current political dispensation.Since 2014, India has been ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.
Shaunak Sen’s “All That Breathes” is showing as a special screening at the festival and previously won the documentary grand jury prize at Sundance.
It follows Delhi-based Muslim brothers Mohammad Saud and Nadeem Shehzad, who, against the backdrop of the territory’s polluted atmosphere and escalating sectarian violence, devote their lives to saving the black kite bird species.“I was absolutely certain that this film was not a snapshot of the current political moment; this film’s main interests were ecological and the human-bird relationship,” Sen said. “However, the last couple of years, especially in Delhi, have been chaotic, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re making a film that’s frontally looking at issues, per se.
But if you really look at an object or person consecutively for three whole years, the world around them starts bleeding in.” Sen also said that conversations around the topic are probably going to be “couched in the language of tact and stratagem.” Rahul Jain, whose climate change film “Invisible Demons” played at Cannes last year, said via Zoom, “I don’t understand why there needs to be tact with nonfiction, and how it’s presented.
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