Directed by Vinay Shukla, and produced by Vinay Shukla and others in the United Kingdom in 2022, the film ‘While We Watched’ was world premiered as a documentary at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival.
Vinay Shukla was presented with Amplify Voices Award by Canada Goose for making a compelling, urgent film ‘While We Watched’ with a wake-up call about the dangerous and fragile relationship between a free press and democracy.
The director examines in this film the threat of budgetary cuts, staff departures, unaccountable obstructions, and even death faced by independent news reporting in India and beyond and highlights leveraging of alternative platforms by extremists to spread misinformation.
Asha Bajaj, from Canadian Media and a special Canadian correspondent of IBNS-TWF had an opportunity to meet with Vinay Shukla at the TIFF Award Ceremony on the 18th of Sep at the TIFF Bell Light Box and to discuss innovative features of ‘While We Watched.’
Excerpts:
What motivated you to direct this film?
When I used to watch the news back home I would be very very concerned. The news would make me feel very lonely. I began to wonder if the people making the news were feeling as lonely as I was while consuming the news. I wanted to make a newsroom trailer that reflected the spirit of the news of my time. Ravish was a great protagonist and I really feel like journalism and TV news in India need a dialogue around it. So I decided to make this film.
But why did you feel lonely while watching the news?
Increasingly as much as I watched the news I would feel like my world is burning down. I would feel very scared and worried about consuming the news. I felt that everything about the news was going wrong and I better try to improve it.
But what made you think that the news is going wrong?
I felt like there is no platform for me to have a dialogue with the news. Right now Indian news is a theater of revenge, where everybody is talking of revenge. That is not how I feel. That is not what most people I know feel. But there is no way for us to tell the news that this is not reflective of us. So I decided to make a film that is reflecting and contemplating that issue.
What is NDTV’s role in your film?
There is no role of NDTV in our film They just gave me access and we shot within the organization.
What do you have to tell about the protagonist Ravish Kumar? He did a wonderful role.
I was very fortunate that Ravish gave me access. He is probably the most famous news anchor in India. Unlike all the other 9 PM broadcasts, he does a very solid 30-minute monolog while everybody is doing panels that have anywhere between 5-15 news guests. Ravish is a monolog. I identified with Ravish because he disagrees a lot. He will ask questions. People can agree and disagree if he asks the right questions. But he really asks tough questions.
As long as the journalists are asking tough questions, I feel in a very good place. So I identified with that spirit and he is very articulate. At some level, he was questioning his own audience regularly. I was wondering if people are watching. At some level, he was also questioning his own audience regularly. And I was wondering if people are watching. That is the struggle I identified with myself and that is why I made this film.
What are your future projects?
I am co-writing a new hostage drama which is not a political film. Let us see where it goes.
#TIFF22; #VinayShukla; #WhileWeWatched
