Documentary on late activist Gauri Lankesh wins Best Human Rights film in Toronto

Gauri, the documentary on the late journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh, who was shot dead outside her home in Bengaluru five years ago, directed by her sister, international award-winning director Kavitha Lankesh, has won the Best Human Rights film at the Toronto Women’s Film Festival 2022. The film also has been selected for the South Asian Film festival of Montreal and is in consideration at the International Documentary Film Festival of Amsterdam, Sundance Film Festival and other festivals across the world.

There have been more than 200 reported attacks on journalists in India in the last five years, out of which over 30 of them have been murdered in the last decade. These attacks range in severity, but the intention behind these attacks matter the most. India’s number in the global press freedom index is 150 out of 180. Attacks on dissenters and journalists are, unfortunately, not new nor is it limited to India, but it is the intensity in which these attacks have taken place in the last decade that is something to be concerned about.

The last decade saw the death one such prominent journalist-turned-activist, Gauri Lankesh, which sent shockwaves across the country and the rest of the world. The documentary exposes the physical and verbal threat journalists face every day in India.

Facing a barrage of litigations over what she published, and with 80 cases against her at the time of her death, Gauri converted her court appearances across the state into an opportunity to travel the length and breadth of the land, meet people and build platforms of resistance at grass root level. The documentary Gauri has been commissioned by Free Press Unlimited, Amsterdam. The Free press Unlimited mission stems from Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.