The chess enthusiasts at the venue here were for a real treat. As the round nine of the World Championship was under progress a documentary — Algorithms — depicting the world of blind chess players across the country captured the struggles and the road ahead for many in a sport who are largely kept ignored.
Blind chess is the only sports that provides the visually challenged people to play the game without any changes to the rules. The documentary directed by Ian McDonald captures the life among the blind chess players, who use the game as a motivation and to compete and increase the confidence levels, to compete with the pros of the sport.
McDonald, who was in Kerala in 2006 for a documentary shoot, says a story in The New Indian Express caught his attention to the sport and the documentary was born: “I came across this story in Express about a blind chess tournament and as I didn’t have much of time then, took the paper cutting back home and thought something should be done about this. It sounded very interesting it was big challenge. And after two years of research I came back to India in 2009 and set the camera rolling,” McDonald said.
The documentary which has already bagged many accolades in film festivals depicts the story of Charudutta Jadhav, a former blind chess player, who has set up a project to take the game among the visually challenged children in India. “When we went to Mumbai for the shoot, Charu’s work caught our eye and with his help we got the documentary done without,” McDonald added.