Nausheen Khan’s Land of My Dreams wins Best Long Documentary Award at IDSFFK

At IDSFFK, Nausheen Khan's "Land of My Dreams" won Best Long Doc, Prateek Shekhar's "Chardi Kala" won 2nd Best Long Doc, Gurleen Grewal's "Somewhere Near and Far" won Best Short Doc, Gaurav Puri's "A Flower in a Foglight" won Best Short Fiction. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan presented Lifetime Achievement Award to Deepa Dhanraj, stressing the importance of democratic space for different voices.

Nausheen Khan’s Land of My Dreams, a poignant recollection of the peaceful women-led protest at Shaheen Bagh against the Citizenship Amendment Act, has been chosen for the Best Long Documentary at the 15th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK), organised by the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy. The award carries a cash prize of ₹2 lakh.

Prateek Shekhar’s Chardi Kala - An Ode to Resilience, a wide-ranging chronicle of the farmers’ protest witnessed in the country for over an year against a set of laws enacted by the Union government, won the award for the Second Best Long Documentary. The special mention in the Long Documentary category went to Divya Kharnare’s 15 Seconds a Lifetime on a youngster’s attempt to become famous on TikTok.

Gurleen Grewal’s Somewhere Near and Far, which gently excavates quotidian everyday moments to stitch together a contemplative, melancholic yet precise portrait of a family in Delhi, won the award for the Best Short Documentary, carrying a cash prize of ₹1 lakh. Siddhant Sarin’s Mum won the award for the Second Best Short Documentary. Lourdes M.Supriya’s’ What Do I Do After You and P.Vishnu Raj’s The Soil shared the special mention in the Short Documentary category.

Gaurav Puri’s A Flower in a Foglight won the award for the Best Short Fiction for powerful rumination on a village faced with imminent displacement for the construction of a new airport. Tarique Ahamed’s When I Look at the Horizon won the award for the Second Best Short Fiction. Alen Savio Lopez’s Samuel 17 won the award for the Best Campus Film. Arbab Ahmad’s Insides and Outsides won the Kumar Talkies Award for Best Editing.

During the valedictory function, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan also presented the Lifetime Achievement Award to documentary filmmaker and researcher Deepa Dhanraj.

“IDSFFK is very special to me personally, having been present from its very first avatar 16 years ago and also having participated over the years as a filmmaker and jury member. I have been grateful that such a supportive space exists for documentary, where films of all political views, including those which goes against the powers that be, find a platform,” said Ms.Dhanraj, who dedicated the award to her longtime collaborators cinematographer Navroze Contractor and editor Jabeen Merchant.

Inaugurating the function, Mr.Vijayan said that democracy becomes meaningful only when space is provided for different voices, not when they are suppressed.