Eminent documentary filmmaker and social activist Deepa Dhanraj has been chosen for the Lifetime Achievement Award for overall contribution in the field of documentary, as part of the 15th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK) to be held in Thiruvananthapuram from August 4 to 9. The award carries a cash prize of ₹2 lakh, a statuette and a citation. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will present the award at the closing ceremony of the festival at the Kairali theatre complex on August 9.
Seventy-year-old Deepa Dhanraj has been active in the documentary field for four decades. In 1980, she started her career by filming three documentaries about women’s rights struggles as part of the women’s film group ‘Yuganthar’. She has directed about 40 documentaries on women’s political participation, health, education and human rights. These films in Kannada, Hindi, English, Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Marathi and Marwari languages were screened at many international festivals and won accolades.
We Have Not Come Here to Die (2018), a historical examination of the caste system in India in the wake of Dalit scholar Rohit Vemula’s death, Invoking Justice (2011) about women’s founding of the Jamaat against religious patriarchy, Enough of this Silence (2008), a compassionate take on the plight of rural women who die in childbirth, Chaitanya (2008), which explores the history of the Devadasi women collective, The Advocate (2007), which tells the public life of K.G.Kannabiran, a pioneer of civil rights struggles in India, Love in the Time of AIDS (2006), about the promotion of safe sex among sexual minorities in Belgaum, Karnataka, and Time to Listen (1996), about an international conference of child labourers.
