Two Indian entries in North America’s biggest documentary film festival

Hot Docs received nearly 2,300 submissions of which 219 documentaries from 66 countries were selected for the festival. The films fall into 12 categories including Special Presentations, International Spectrum and World Showcase and half the directors are women

Two Indian entries focusing on women will be among those screened at the 2021 edition of North America’s biggest documentary film festival, Hot Docs.

A still from the Indian film, Writing with Fire, which will be showcased at the 2021 edition of Hot Docs. (Hot Docs)

The 12-day festival will commence on April 29.

Among the highlights will be a 93-minute feature Writing with Fire. The documentary profiles a newspaper in rural Uttar Pradesh, Khabar Lahariya, which is run entirely by a team of Dalit women. The documentary also highlights the transition of the newspaper from print to digital.

Hot Docs programmer Myrocia Watamaniuk, said that the documentary Khabar Lahariya portrays how “these reporters know they are changing perceptions of what women dare to do while protecting democracy through journalism”.

It’s directed and produced by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh.

The other Indian entry in the festival, Testimony of Ana, is a 24-minute short feature directed by Sachin Dheeraj Mudigonda. According to programmer Angie Driscoll, the story is about an “adivasi woman, accused of witchcraft by her neighbours in rural India, uses faith and perseverance to survive attacks”.

The festival will begin with the screening of A.rtificial I.mmortality from Canadian director Ann Shin. Covering the philosophical and ethical questions relating to the evolution of technology, it “reveals how our memories can be digitised and uploaded into digital clones, preserving our personality and spirit without the limitations of a physical body”, according to a statement from Hot Docs.

The 2020 edition of the festival was disrupted by the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in Canada and was postponed to May and then held virtually.

A year later, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to affect the world, the 2021 Hot Docs will be held completely online.

Hot Docs received nearly 2,300 submissions of which 219 documentaries from 66 countries were selected for the festival. The films fall into 12 categories including Special Presentations, International Spectrum and World Showcase and half the directors are women.

“Documentaries are vitally important in helping us understand the world we live in, and to build bridges of understanding across cultural, social and political divides, particularly at this unprecedented moment in time,” Hot Docs’ director of programming, Shane Smith said.