Anand Patwardhan’s latest documentary, Reason, was announced as the winner of Best Feature-Length Documentary award at the 31st International Documentary Filmfest Amsterdam. The festival organisers announced on Thursday (22 November) that Patwardhan’s 261-minute long film was unanimously voted as it is a work of “epic storytelling of the rise of the far right in one of the most populated countries of this planet … in a way that acknowledges the complexity of the situation but puts it in a very understandable shape”.
Spanning 4 hours and eight minutes, Patwardhan’s documentary examines the growing radicalism of Indian society and the threats faced by secularists in the largest democracy of the world.
Another Indian winner at the festival was Payal Kapadia’s short documentary, And What Is The Summer Saying’. The documentary won the Special Jury Award for Short Documentary. Kapadia’s film is a poetic glimpse at a distant village in the Sahyadris in Maharashtra.
Patwardhan’s previous documentary credits include Ram Ke Naam (1992), Father, Son and Holy War (1995) and Jai Bhim Comrade (2012).