Yet another Indian documentary has won an award at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival. Documentary feature ‘Against The Tide’ has won the Special Jury Award for Verite Filmmaking at Sundance 2023. Interestingly, ‘Against The Tide’ was the only Indian feature film competing at the Sundance Film Festival 2023, in the World Cinema Documentary Competition category.
The win by ‘Against The Tide’ marks a hat-trick of Indian documentary wins at successive Sundance Film Festivals. ‘Writing With Fire’ bagged the same award in 2021, while this year’s strongest Oscars contender ‘All That Breathes’ won the Grand Jury Award at Sundance last year, in 2022. Writing With Fire had also made it to the final nominations at the Oscar Awards in 2022. Going by these past records, ‘Against The Tide’ has an excellent chance at making it to the Oscars in 2024.
‘Against The Tide’ is directed by filmmaker Sarvnik Kaur. It shines a light on the Kolis of Mumbai, the original fishing community of the city. The documentary tells its story through the lens of two lifelong friends, Ganesh and Rakesh, both fishermen in Mumbai. Through their diverse world views, as well as struggles to survive, the filmmaker highlights mankind’s changing relationship with the environment.
The official Sundance synopsis of ‘Against The Tide’ reads,
“Rakesh and Ganesh are so close, they consider themselves brothers. Both are fishermen of Bombay’s Indigenous Koli community, but they’ve taken contrasting paths. Rakesh uses his inheritance — his father’s boat and the knowledge passed down by generations of Koli fisherman — to fish in the traditional ways, while Ganesh — who was educated abroad — has instead embraced modern, technology-driven, and environmentally destructive methods of deep-sea fishing, causing increasing friction between the friends. But with declining fish populations caused by pollution and invasive species, neither man is finding much success, adding to the burdens facing their young families, and testing the bonds of their brotherhood.”
The Sundance win of ‘Against The Tide’ highlights yet again the growing respect and acknowledgement of the world cinematic community for Indian filmmakers and their craft, notably documentary filmmakers.
And more power to ‘Against The Tide’, and other Indian documentaries of its ilk.
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