Muskaan Gupta

DocedgeKolkata last week hosted a panel titled “Towards an Equitable Collaboration: Sustainable Co-production” moderated by Rintu Thomas, (Writing With Fire). The discussion saw the participation of Anirban Dutta (Director and Screenwriter), Esther Van Messel (Founder, First Hand Films), Christilla Huillard-Kann (Producer, ELDA Production; ex-Commissioning Editor, ARTE France) and Heejung Oh (Founder/Producer, Seesaw Pictures).

Pushpa Rawat’s Docedge project Sita’s Awakening provides an intimate look at the lives of two sisters fighting against both domestic abuse and an inaccessible legal system. "Right now, this film is about the transformative journey of two sisters — who go from being victims of abuse to becoming women who not only recover but who also seek to hold positions of power, ensuring an end to this kind of injustice for all,” explains producer and editor Niharika Popli, who is joined in conversation by director Rawat.

How Love Moves by director Pallavi Paul and producer Aman Mann (All That Breathes) explores the story of 40-year-old grave-keeper Shameem, who has played a paramount role in the burial of over 1000 bodies at the Delhi Gate Cemetery ever since the pandemic reshaped the city. “The graveyard is not a place where any kind of hectic, dramatic activity happens, and yet the richness of life here lends itself to really compelling dramatic moments,” producer Mann tells BDE.

Mathieu Béjot, the cultural attaché for film, audiovisual and digital content at the French Institute in India, was wearing two hats at DocedgeKolkata 2025. Former Director of Strategy and Development at La Rochelle-based Sunny Side of the Doc, Béjot was thereto invite one project from the 24 pitches in Kolkata to the Sunny Side forum in June 2025, as well as foster relationships between the audiovisual industries of France and India.

At DocedgeKolkata 2025, Business Doc Europe caught up with Aleksandra Derewienko, Head of Sales at Paris-basewd CAT&Docs, who shared her thoughts on the industry event. “I find Indian filmmakers to be very cinematic,” Derewienko commented. “They have a very sensitive kind of outlook towards characters and are able to find very interesting stories that resonate everywhere.”

Varun Trikha’s DocedgeKolkata pitch for his project Shape of Silence centres around congenitally blind wildlife sound recordist Izabela who has spent 15 years listening and engaging with the forests of Poland. “The portrayal of disabled people in cinema is often one dimensional,” Trikha tells BDE. “With this film, I want to film her as a person with autonomy, with emotional depth, with all her struggles and joys, with all her vulnerabilities as well.”

For over two decades, DocedgeKolkata has been the launchpad for some of the most ground-breaking South Asian documentaries. “Stories start travelling the moment you pitch, moving into markets and forging connections. It's a paradigm shift in terms of accessing finance and eventually bringing resources on board,” Docedge’s Nilotpal Majumdar tells BDE during the event’s 22nd roll-out.