Indian Documentary Writing With Fire Based On Female Journalists Nominated For Oscars

India's documentary Writing With Fire, a documentary by Delhi-based filmmakers Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, has been nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category this year.

India's documentary Writing With Fire has been nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Documentary Feature at the 94th Academy Awards. The Academy's official Twitter feed announced the news. Tracee Ellis Ross and Leslie Jordan announced the nominees on Tuesday evening. The awards ceremony will take place on March 27.

Since winning the Special Jury (Impact for Change) and Audience honours at the Sundance Film Festival in January of last year, the documentary film has been making headlines. It has won more than 20 international awards since then. The duo's debut feature documentary, centred on a one-of-a-kind rural newspaper called Khabar Lahariya, which has been run by Dalit women since 2002, sheds light on their journey as they pose necessary questions about caste and patriarchy.

• Writing With Fire: 

The India's documentary, Writing With Fire, which tells the tale of Khabar Lahariya, an all-organization women's group, has been nominated for an Academy Award in the "Best Documentary Feature" category. Khabar Lahariya is India's only newspaper run entirely by Dalit women, with Meera as the reporter.

Delhi-based filmmakers Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh have directed this documentary and this is their debut work together.

Writing With Fire follows the crew as they transition their paper from print to digital. At the Sundance Film Festival in 2021, the documentary earned the Special Jury (Impact for Change) and Audience awards.

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• Khabar Lahariya:

The Nirantar Trust created Khabar Lahariya in 2002, with Kavita from Uttar Pradesh as a co-founder. The paper, which was then published every two weeks, was administered by a team of six women who wrote in Bundeli and Hindi.

The Chameli Devi Jain Award, which honours outstanding women journalists in India, was given to the daily in 2004. The Dorabji Tata Trust and the United Nations Democracy and Equity Fund backed the publication.

Khabar Lahariya's team has concentrated on issues including violence against women and other minorities, as well as administrative deficiencies and incompetence, since its establishment.

• Other Documentaries Nominated:

The other documentaries nominated in the category along with Writing With Fire are Ascension, Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), Attica, and Flee.