Documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan will be honoured at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto, Canada, for his body of work and the event will also screen some of his films on Hindutva and majoritarianism.
Patwardhan, an uncompromising critic of Hindutva who has often fallen foul of Right-wing politics, will receive the 2022 Outstanding Achievement Award. The Hot Docs Festival, which is to begin on April 28, is the largest international documentary festival in North America and is a qualifying event for documentaries for the Oscars.
The 72-year-old filmmaker is best known for his National Award-winning documentaries Bombay: Our City (1985) on slum-dwellers, In Memory of Friends (1990) on the Punjab insurgency, In the Name of God (1992) that foretold the Babri Masjid demolition, Father, Son and Holy War (1995) on Hindutva, War and Peace (2002) on the 1998 nuclear tests in India and Pakistan, and Jai Bhim Comrade (2011) 1997 police firing on Dalits in Mumbai.
Father, Son and Holy War and War and Peace will be screened at the Hot Docs Festival along with Patwardhan’s 1981 documentary A Time to Rise, on Canadian peasants, and his latest film Reason (2018) on the history of majoritarianism in India.
Patwardhan told The Telegraph: “An award like this would, in normal times, increase viewership, not just internationally but in India as well. But we live under a regime that takes extraordinary measures to control what people see and what they must not.”
Screenings of his films have often been disrupted by Sangh parivar groups and he has had to go to court several times to have them shown on Doordarshan, as National Award-winning films are entitled to be.
The Mumbai-based Patwardhan added: “On the one hand the Prime Minister of this country acts like a sales agent for a film like The Kashmir Files and the regime ensures a box-office hit. On the other hand, screenings of even older films of mine that won censor certificates allowing ‘Universal’ viewing are physically attacked by goons. In these circumstances, the Hot Docs award is an affirmation that there are people across the globe who understand the value of films that refuse to be bullied into silence.”
Several BJP-ruled states have waived entertainment tax on Vivek Agnihotri’s The Kashmir Files, which documents what it claims to be “genocide” of Pandits in the Valley in 1990. The film, seen by sections as anti-Muslim propaganda, has received overwhelming support from the Right wing. Prime Minister Modi backed the film at the BJP parliamentary party meeting in March and finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman slammed the Congress in the Lok Sabha for tweeting a fact-check on the movie.
The Centre had stalled the screening of Reason at the 2019 International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala, the only Indian festival from where a film can qualify for the Oscars.
The organiser, the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy, and Patwardhan had moved Kerala High Court and won their right to screen it. The film was the runner-up in the Long Documentary category.
It was not selected for The Mumbai International Film Festival in 2020, prompting Patwardhan to allege “backdoor censorship” by the Centre.
In 2019, students screened In The Name of God, known in Hindi as Ram Ke Naam, at Presidency University despite the denial of permission and electricity being disconnected midway.
Students at Jawaharlal Nehru University showcased the film last year despite the denial of permission.
