Indian Documentaries

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HISTORY OF INDI NDOCUMENT RIES

A PowerPoint Presentation onHistory Of Indian Documentaries

By:

Mayank BodalkarB.M.S. 1st SemesterSession : 2014 17


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INTRODUCTION

film as a factual film which is dramatic. Documentary hasbeen described as a filmmaking practice, a cinematictradition, and mode of audience reception that is continuallyevolving and is without clear boundaries.

A documentary film is anonfictional motion pictureintended to document some aspectof reality, primarily for thepurposes of instruction ormaintaining a historical record.The American film critic PareLorentz defines a documentary


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On the historic midnight ofAugust 14 and 15, 1947, India

became independent fromBritish rule. First Indian PrimeMinister Jawaharlal Nehru'sspeech, A Tryst with Destiny,

was recorded by independent filmmaker Ambles J. Patel with twocameras and sound equipment.There were no official film units of the Government of India or otherIndian filmmakers to film this historic moment and the subsequentnationwide celebrations. That was 57 years ago, but today India boasts

a vibrant independent documentary filmmaking community. Indiandocumentary filmmakers have today carved a niche for themselves inthe nonfiction genre world with their creativity and hard-hitting workson subjects ranging from Indian arts and social concerns to natural

history.


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But the Indian documentary filmmaking tradition datesback well before independence. In 1888 a short film ofwrestlers Pundalik Dada and Krishna Navi at Bombay'sHanging Gardens was filmed by Harishchandra SakharamBhatavdekar, also known as Save dada, can be consideredthe first documentary filmmaker of India. His film TheWrestlers was shot during a wrestling match in Mumbaiand was the first film to be shot by an Indian. This was thefirst recorded documentary film in India.A Maharashtrian portrait photographer by occupation,Bhatavdekar was one of the first witnesses to the Lumiere

Brothers film show in 1896 in Mumbai. He soon acquired amovie camera from London and a projector and went on tomake some films on day-to-day life of the city as also someimportant events.


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His later films also were all realityfilms, with Sir Wrangler andDelhi Darbar being of historical

significance; since importantpersonalities like R. P. Paranjpe canbe seen landing in India from a

ship; and the proceedings of theDelhi Durbar (Delhi Royal Court). Bhatavdekar also filmed Lord Curzon at the coronation of KingEdward VII in Kolkata (Calcutta) in 1903. In the 1930s,

filmmakers D.G. Tendulkar, who had studied motion pictures inMoscow and Germany, and K.S. Hirelekar, who had studiedculture films in Germany, brought the latest concepts ofdocumentary film and laid the foundation of the documentarymovement in India.


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In April 1948 the Indian Government formed the FilmsDivision and described it as the official organ of the Government ofIndia for the production and distribution of information films andnewsreels. Screenings of Films Division documentaries were mademandatory before feature films at all cinemas in India. From June1949, the Films Division started regular distribution of newsreelsand documentaries through its own distribution set-up. Films weredubbed in five languages English, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and

Telegu and 97 films were produced in 1949-50.The Films Division soon became one of the most important

sources of public information, and it tried to reach out to people inthe remotest corners of India. Many exciting films emerged from the

Films Division

S.N.S. Sastry's I Am 20, Fali Bilimoria's The HousThat Ananda Built, Sukhdev's India 1967 and M.F. Husain's Throughthe Eyes of a Painter. The Films Division today is Asia's biggesdocumentary and short film producer, having to its creditinnumerable films that have won laurels at home and abroad duringthe last 56 years.


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In 1978, An Encounter withFaces, Vidhu Vinod Chopra'sdocumentary about Bombaystreet children, went all theway to Hollywood, where itwas nominated for an Oscar. The film also earned nine out

of twelve awards at theOberhausen Film Festival,and won the top prizes at thefestivals in Milan, Leipzigand Finland.

At the International Film Festival of India, it won the Golden Peacock.The technique of the film was singled out for special mention: direct,unwavering conversations with children, neither patronizing norpitying.


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The advent of digital video technology has furtherrevolutionized the Indian documentary technique. Traditionally

Indian documentary overwhelmingly favoured the didacticsocial documentary, but now filmmakers have moved towardsthe internationally accepted direct cinema style, adopting itsrealist aesthetic and reliance on interviews, while continuing to

retain Griersonian voiceover narration.

CHANGE IN TECHNOLOGY


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Until the advent of the satellite television boom in India in theearly 1990s, state broadcaster Doordarshan's two nationalterrestrial channels were the only TV networks in India wheredocumentary films could be screened. The launch of DiscoveryChannel in India in August 1995 and the subsequent entry ofNational Geographic Channel in 1998 created further avenuesfor Indian filmmakers to screen their work.

EMMERGENCE OF CHANNELS


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The Indian documentarycommunity has presentedcinematic gems and has putIndian images on televisionscreens across the planet. MikePandey is the only Asianfilmmaker ever to have won theGreen Oscar twice at the Wild

screen Festival in the UK, for hisdocumentaries Rogue Elephantsof India. The latter film was

shot under extreme conditions and took almost three years tocomplete. It aimed towards creating policies to support a ban on thekilling and trade of whale sharks in India as well as findingsustainable alternatives for the fishermen, says Pandey. The EarthMatters Foundation set up by Pandey to create the preservation ofwildlife in their natural habitat began an awareness campaign to

save the whale shark. The campaign successfully got the hunting ofthis s ecies banned worldwide.


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Patwardhan's latest documentary, War and Peace,documents activist movements in South Asia since the 1998nuclear tests in India and Pakistan. Patwardhan has beenmaking documentary films for the past 25 years about humanrights issues in India, like street dwellers in Bombay, the rise ofreligious fundamentalism and the negative impact ofglobalization.

Besides Pandey, severalIndian filmmakers, includingAnand Patwardhan, SanjayKak, Amar Kanwar, RakeshSharma and Ashwika Kapoor,have already carved a nichefor themselves on theinternational documentary

stage.


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Kak has carved out a special nichein the echelon of experimentalcinema, and his films havereceived awards as well as criticalappreciation at film festivals inParis, Fribourg, Hawaii and Dhaka.His documentary In the ForestHangs a Bridge won the 1999

Margaret Mead Film FestivalDocumentary Film Award in theUS.

Ashwika Kapoor won a

Green Oscar for her documentarySirroco a documentary aboutSirocco a kakapo who is theworl s only bird with agovternment job.


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The Mumbai International Film Festival forDocumentary, Short and Animation Films was launchedin 1990 as a biennial competitive event and is organizedby the Films Division, in close cooperation with the StateGovernment of Maharashtra. In this festival,

outstanding films in various categories are selected byan international jury for Golden and Silver Conches andhefty cash prizes. The festival aims to serve as a platformwhere the filmmakers of the world can meet andexchange ideas, explore the possibility of co-productionand market their films.


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The Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting attemptedto make censor certificates a mandatory precondition for Indiandocumentaries entered into the 2004 Mumbai International

Film Festival. In August 2003 over 300 Indian documentaryfilmmakers came together to protest against it, The documentaryfilmmaking community saw through this apparently innocuousstep, recognizing it as a part of a wider structure of control andrepression, where the rights to free speech, dissent and evencreative expression are increasingly coming under threat inIndia.

In an unprecedented display of collective resistance,filmmakers from across the country organized around the

Campaign Against Censorship, and were successful in forcingthe ministry to drop its attempts to introduce censorcertification for the festival. The filmmakers then set in motionVikalp Films for Freedom, an independent documentary film

festival. After a stopover at Bangalore, the celluloid caravantravelled on to Trivandrum, Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata.


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SOME OF THE BEST INDIANDOCUMENTARIES

ts really hard to judge and rank the brilliant

documentaries made by our Indian documentaryfilmmakers; as they are wonderful, brilliant and hardhitting and show the world we i nt even know existedin our own country. The new age films may all be jazzy,out of the world, ostentatious, aiming to break the boxoffice records, but there are those few movies which aretruly made to make a difference to our lives and instigateus to ponder the deeper meaning of ones existence. Hereare some such Indian documentaries that stand out.
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CHILDREN OF THE PYREThis is movie is about seven extraordinary childrenwho make their living out of the dead, as they work atthe busiest cremation grounds of Manikarniaka,Varanasi. They collect, snatch or steal used shrouds andsell them for petty amounts to make their ends meet.This real-life, self-narrative was directed by Rajesh Jala

SEEDS OF PLENTY, SEEDS OF SORROW

Green Revolution, which is thought to benefit the mankind indeed

manages to do the opposite. The documentary attempts to give aninsight into very corporate concept and how misleading it really isand that it is only a way elude the truth that gets us farther andfarther away from the real issues at hand. This was directed byManjira Datta.

This one talks about the much hyped subject ofthe Green Revolution in India. The concept of
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The issues of self-respect and sexual discrepancy of such people isdealt with. It attempts to change the mindset of the people who haveso far ridiculed the very possibility of these to have relationships and

sexual desires. This documentary was directed by Arun Chadha.

MINDSCAPES OF LOVE AND LONGINGThis well-directed documentary explores thelives of differently abled people and theirsexuality. It talks about how the society off-caststhem and treats them as non-entities.

THE WORLD BEFORE HERts an interesting documentary on women power,

directed by Nisha Pahuja, explores two lives which are

ironically different yet similar. The protagonists of thedocumentary are two women, one a beauty paegentand the other a member of a womens wing of a Hindufundamentalist movement in India. The movie gives us an insight intothe determined women of today, who despite all the hardships are outthere to get what is theirs.
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The Indian documentary community is now looking at expanding itshorizons. Pandey has already been invited to be a jurist for the 2004

Wildscreen, where he is also a finalist for the esteemed Filmmakerfor Conservation Award. Vanishing iants , his film on the elephantcrisis in India, is also a finalist for a Panda Award. Patwardhan wasthe keynote speaker at Silverdocs in the US in June, and Sharmapicked up the Wolfgang Staudte award at the Berlin Film Festival.Ashwika Kapoor won Green Oscar earlier this year for sirocco.In the near future it seems there will be a documentary film made byan Indian filmmaker screening at a theater near you....

FUTURE OF INDIAN DOCUMENTARIES

Indian Documentaries

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