P.V. Satheesh, founder and Executive Director of the Deccan Development Society passed away on 19 March, 2023. Periyapatna Venkatasubbaiah Satheesh – P.V. Satheesh to friends – was born in Mysore in 1945. He studied mass communication and television production at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication and the Film and Television Institute of India. He joined Doordarshan as a senior producer and worked on programming related to rural development and...

-TheNewsMinute.com ‘Colonies in conflict’, directed by Rajani Mani, follows migratory giant Asian honey bees to reveal how human action is driving bee decline. When Documentary Filmmaker Rajani Mani moved into a high-rise apartment in Bengaluru in 2015, the massive beehives on the balconies and ledges of the top floors caught her eye. She was concerned, however, about the use of fire, smoke and pesticides to remove the hives which could endanger the...

-TheWire.in The documentary serves as an uncomfortable reminder of how ill-equipped we are to deal with the complex material realities of oppressed communities, especially when they implicate us at a fundamental level. Writing with Fire by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh is another addition to the bourgeoning mainstream media engagement with caste in India. The documentary has garnered accolades  – including an (ultimately unsuccessful) Oscar nomination – for its depiction of the...

-Scroll.in The directors of ‘Writing With Fire’ say that they have highlighted the important work done by the women-run collective. Media organisation Khabar Lahariya, the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary Writing with Fire, published a statement on its website on Monday claiming that the film’s inaccurately depicts the rural, women-led collective as having “a particular and consuming focus of reporting on one party”. The documentary is “a story which captures a part of...

-The Hindu As ‘Writing with Fire’ competes at the Oscars, filmmakers Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh look back on why they decided to follow three Dalit journalists for five years Six years ago, when New Delhi-based filmmakers Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh attended a meeting at the Khabar Lahariya office in Chitrakoot, Uttar Pradesh, they had no idea how deeply engaged they would soon get with the lives and work of the...