BENGALURU: Well-known Kannada film director Kavitha Lankesh’s documentary ‘Gauri’ - based on the life of her sister and slain journalist-activist Gauri Lankesh, has won the ‘Best Human Rights’ film award at the Toronto Women’s Film Festival 2022. “I am thankful for the recognition the film has received. It was an extremely traumatic journey for me and my cameraman Deepu. He was with Gauri through her activism,” Kavitha told TNIE.
The documentary has also been selected for the South Asian Film Festival of Montreal and is in consideration at Doc New York, International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam, Sundance Film Festival and other festivals across the world. ‘Gauri’ was commissioned by Free Press Unlimited, Amsterdam, whose mission stems from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“Last year, they had called for proposals on documentaries on journalists who have lost their lives in war or in acts of violence in the line of duty. There were around 300 proposals out of which Free Press accepted four entries. One of them was mine,” Kavitha said.
She said that before submitting the proposal to Free Press, she had asked herself whether she would be able to weather the trauma yet again, of tracking and filming the life of her sister, whose journalistic career was dotted with her activism for people, whose voices are seldom heard till that fatal evening of September 5, 2017 when Gauri was assassinated just outside her house in Rajarajeshwari Nagar in Bengaluru.
Gauri was more than a sister, says Kavitha
The Special Investigation Team (SIT), constituted by the then Congress-led-Siddaramaiah- government, had arrested and named 18 accused in the charge-sheeted in the case, who reportedly claim allegiance to some fringe rightwing groups. The trial in the case is underway. “It was a tough decision to make whether to do the film because Gauri was more than a sister to me.
She was my friend, mentor and soul keeper. I have still to come to terms that she is not around. Making the film meant going back to those traumatic memories. But I felt that I must tell the story of this woman, who knew no fear when it came to fighting for justice and Constitutional rights of the people,” said Kavitha. “Shooting the film was cathartic because there are innumerable people, whose lives Gauri had touched. They remember her so fondly and miss her presence. She was threatened, had meagre resources but still soldiered on fearlessly,” added the noted film director.