London: MetFilm Distribution has acquired the U.K. and Ireland rights to Vinay Shukla’s multi-award-winning documentary ‘While We Watched’, reports ‘Variety’.
Produced by the UK’s Lono Studio and BritDoc Films, the documentary is a newsroom drama chronicling the working days of former popular NDTV journalist Ravish Kumar as he navigates a spiralling world of truth and disinformation, ‘Variety’ adds.
A Ramon Magsaysay Award winner, Kumar resigned after controversial billionaire Gautam Adani took over the company.
‘While We Watched’ debuted at Toronto in 2022 where it won the Amplify Voices award, followed by Busan, where it picked up the Cinephile award, according to ‘Variety’. Most recently, the film won the international competition at Helsinki’s DocPoint Festival.
Shukla had previously co-directed the 2016 political documentary ‘An Insignificant Man’ on the rise of Arvind Kejriwal and the Aam Aadmi Party. ‘While We Watched’, Shukla told ‘Variety’, is “my love letter to journalism”.
He said: “It’s an urgent newsroom horror film — there is a story of hope hidden deep inside layers of personal loneliness.”
Wayne D’Cruz of MetFilm Distribution added: “Vinay Shukla has made an urgent and prescient film that offers not just a brilliant view of the febrile state of the Indian news media landscape, but also of its effects on the Indian polity.”
D’Cruz noted, according to ‘Variety’: “Following ‘Writing With Fire’ and ‘All That Breathes’, ‘While We Watched’ is the latest addition to exceptional non-scripted features coming out of India at this time, and we are delighted to bring the film to UK and Irish cinemas later this year.”
