Award-winning filmmaker Vinay Shukla’s new feature, While We Watched, a turbulent newsroom drama featuring Ravish Kumar has won the ‘Amplify Voices Award’ at the Toronto International Film Festival 2022.
While We Watched is Shukla’s second film to have its World Premiere at TIFF Docs after his much-acclaimed debut feature, film An Insignificant Man (co-directed with Khushboo Ranka). The film won a historic censorship battle, was hailed at film festivals around the world, and became a runaway success in theatres.
Titled ‘NAMASKAR! MAIN RAVISH KUMAR’ in Hindi, While We Watched is a turbulent newsroom drama that intimately chronicles the working days of broadcast journalist Ravish Kumar, as he navigates a spiralling world of truth and disinformation.
Through the lens of its protagonist – a man clinging onto integrity even as everything falls apart – ‘While We Watched’ urges the viewer to consider their own responsibility and culpability as news and media come under greater scrutiny than ever before, Vinay’s upcoming film delivers the promise of a bold, timely, and globally relevant documentary.
The film received standing ovation at the end of each screening at TIFF.
The 94 mins documentary in Hindi-English language is a UK production and is produced by LONO Studio and BRITDOC Films.
The director Vinay reflects on the film, “Journalists are the foremost storytellers of our time. I spent two years in Ravish’s newsroom, watching him build his daily broadcast. Ravish and his team would get some stories right, some stories just about. Watching him, I realized that for every report that we see on the news, the journalist behind the report pays a cost – an emotional, financial, ethical and mental cost. No story is easy, every story is personal. This film is about that personal cost that journalists pay to do their job right. My film would apply to any journalist who has stood their ground and chosen to file a story which was true to their beliefs. This film is my love letter to journalism.”
One of the film’s producers, Luke W Moody, remarks, “In this moment we’re seeing a new wave of truth and what we understand to be news being manipulated globally to serve the dangerous power of the few. Who will speak up for truth and debate in the dark noise of propaganda? Vinay’s film is a dignified, stirring lens into that abyss and a call to recognise what we might lose while we watched.”