INDIA’S DOCUMENTARY

There’s a global shift towards non-fiction storytelling, states Girish Dwibhashyam, COO of DocuBay, a relatively recent streamer and production company of documentaries. Millions of viewers across the world have signed up with it, and last year, it premiered three productions: Plastic Fantastic, Water Mafia, and Going Poly. “Not all OTT platforms prioritise documentaries, as this genre operates within its own unique economic dynamics. Amid fierce competition, most OTTs remain focused on retaining a mass audience. Therefore, platforms specialising in documentary films enjoy a competitive advantage,” he says.

Last year, Anita Horam, a seasoned unscripted TV executive and former executive producer for Netflix, launched The Mighty Muse, a development and curation hub for non-fiction films and series. She is bullish on stories about emerging India. “Despite incredible source material, one of the key impediments for creators is a distinct lack of meaningful evangelists to help them find their audience without getting bogged down for want of resources, information or know-how. My venture is a concrete way to address this and fill the considerable gaps. Great content has no borders and hyperlocal can deeply impact the global zeitgeist if produced well and promoted strategically,” she says. whose docuseries Wedding.con dropped on Amazon Prime Video this year

Stills from recent documentaries; (far left) Aparna Purohit; and Girish Dwibhashyam.

Gulabi Gang in 2012 — on the lives of a Bundelkhand women’s group that fights oppression, violence and caste dominance. Jain shares how she and her producers couldn’t get Netflix to buy Gulabi Gang. “At best, OTTs want a modified reality that everyone can consume. In their defence, however, it’s not easy to show bold content in India.”

Narrative documentaries “complicate the gaze and celebrate the plurality and complexity of our existence”. Her last film, The Golden Thread (2022), was set outside of Kolkata, and looks at the lives of jute workers. It is still doing the rounds of international film festivals. Her forthcoming film is on the farmer protests of 20202021.

Tanuja Chandra’s docuseries Wedding.con, which dropped on Amazon Prime Video this year, borders on docufiction but stays unflinchingly with the voices and emotions of her subjects: Indian women who have undergone extreme distress because of matrimonial frauds. A director of feature films, BBC Studios approached Chandra to direct the series. “I feel funding should be

Breathes much more generous. So many documentary producers work on abysmally low budgets. Having said that, I do know that OTT has made audiences at least become aware of the beauty of documentary films,” she says. The responses to her first nonfiction project have been overwhelming. “Documentary is a thing of slowburn, though. It’ll be many months before we know the extent to which our show has touched people. And deep down, I know it’ll be extensive.”

An older generation would remember Doordarshan documentaries about social issues that ran like message films. There was something noble, and deathly boring, about them. Today, the best documentaries don’t run on binaries. The nomination of To Kill a Tiger is another propeller to Indian narrative storytellers to “complicate the gaze”.

on abysmally low budgets. Having said that, I do know that OTT has made audiences at least become aware of the beauty of documentary films

TANUJA CHANDRA,

The writer and critic is based in Mumbai.