This year’s Amplify Voices Award presented by Canada Goose at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is presented to the filmmaker Vinay Shukla for his debut While We Watched.
In this film, Vinay Shukla examines how independent news reporting in India and beyond is being threatened by budgetary cuts, and alternative platforms like television to spread misinformation.
Jury’s statement: “While We Watched is a compelling, urgent film that collapses our differences. It is a wake-up call to how perilous and fragile the relationship between a free press and democracy is everywhere.”
The 2022 jurors for the Amplify Voices Awards presented by Canada Goose are Ann Marie Fleming, Anne Emond, Nathan Morlando, Jennifer Holness, Albert Shin, and Luisa Alvarez Restrepo.
Embracing diversity in all its forms and definitions, including technique and passion to transport storytelling to the screen, Canada Goose’s awards eligibility included all feature films in Official Selection by emerging filmmakers who are Black or Indigenous or persons of color and Canadian.
Each of the three winners will receive a cash prize of $10,000 made possible by Canada Goose.
Produced by Vinay Shukla, Khushboo Ranka, and Luke W. Moody in the United Kingdom in 2022, the film casts Ravish Kumar, Sushil Mohapatra, Swarolipi Sengupta, Sushil Bahuguna, Saurabh Shukla, and Deepak Chaubey.
Although the film ‘While We Watched’ is rooted in India, its depiction of misinformation is universal.
Veteran reporter, Ravish Kumar of India’s NDTV, at the center of the film strives to uphold standards of independence and accountability. Although he says that their job is to ask the most difficult questions to those in power, he is challenged every day by the rising popularity of channels that replace news and the reality, budget cuts, staff departures, unknown obstructions, and even death threats. Telling this story with the speed of breaking news, Vinay Shukla portrays Kumar as a beacon of hope through his professionalism, perseverance, and his mentoring younger reporters.
Born in Raipur, India, Vinay Shukla studied at Mumbai University. He has directed the short film Bureaucracy Sonata (11) and the documentary feature An Insignificant Man (16), which debuted at the Festival. While We Watched (22) is his latest film.
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(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)
