American Documentary

Overview

New York, N.Y. — July 5, 2023 — Following its award winning festival run, While We Watched directed by Vinay Shukla (An Insignificant Man) and produced by Luke W. Moody (founding producer, Lono Studio) and Khushboo Ranka (co-director, producer, An Insignificant Man), will make its national broadcast premiere on Monday, September 4, 2023 at 10pmET/9C (check local listings) and will be available to stream until December 3, 2023 at pbs.org, and the PBS App. In addition to standard closed captioning for the film, POV, in partnership with audio description service DiCapta, provides real time audio interpretations for audiences with sensory disabilities.

Now in its historic 36th season, POV continues to share bold, visionary stories as America's longest running non-fiction series with Vinay Skukla’s timely look at the increasing threats to independent journalism and the public’s trust in news.

While We Watched made its world premiere at the 2022 Toronto Film Festival where it won the Amplify Voices award and the Cinephile award at the Busan Film Festival. It went on to win the international competition at Helsinki’s DocPoint Festival and will have its U.S. theatrical debut in July. Shukla’s film is essential viewing for those interested in understanding the urgency and complexity of this critical moment for independent journalists and the global news media landscape in an era of rampant misinformation.

No stranger to creating topically charged documentaries, Vinay Shukla has described his film as an “angry and anxious love letter to journalism.” While We Watched offers an unfiltered look inside the nerve center of NDTV, once the bastion of truth for India’s network news, now spiraling downward in a wave of fake news, financial setbacks, growing nationalism and extremist attacks on truth.

While We Watched captures the energy of the newsroom, the inherent drama of reportage, and presents the human side of journalism, with an intimate look at one of India’s most celebrated journalists, Ravish Kumar, known for questioning those in power, often at his own peril. As the public discourse morphs into polarized bombast, Kumar and his colleagues struggle to compete within India’s vastly deteriorating news media industry.

While We Watched director Vinay Shukla said “A very long time ago, a very young version of me used to google POV documentaries and read their synopsis in awe. POV helped me discover Laura Poitras’ The Oath & Geoffrey Smith’s The English Surgeon. I felt the power of documentaries and I wrote fan mails to these filmmakers. To be here now and have my own film release on POV is quite unexpected for me. I am grateful. I hope my film does for somebody what Laura & Geoffrey’s film did for me.”

“In a time of fake news, misinformation and zealous political punditry, Vinay’s film is an urgent appeal to defend our independent journalists. The emotional stakes run high in this intimate look at embattled broadcast anchor, Ravish Kumar. Through the process of news-making we witness his struggle and, in equal measure, his commitment to journalistic integrity in a landscape where truth and fact are routinely distorted,” said POV executive producer Chris White.

While We Watched is a Lono Studio, Britdoc Films, and American Documentary | POV co-production. Vinay Shukla is the director. The producers are Luke W. Moody and Khushboo Ranka. Executive Producers are Erika Dilday and Chris White for American Documentary | POV.

Credits

Director: Vinay Shukla

Cinematography: Amaan Shaikh and Vinay Shukla

Producers: Luke W. Moody and Khushboo Ranka

Executive Producers: Beadie Finzi, Maxyne Franklin and Jess Search for Britdoc Films, Vijay Vaidyanathan, Anurima Bhargava; and Erika Dilday and Chris White for American Documentary | POV

Editor: Abhinav Tyagi

Running time: 82 min

Countries: India, United Kingdom

Year: 2022

Photos

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About the Filmmakers

Vinay Shukla, Director/Cinematographer, While We Watched

Vinay Shukla is a filmmaker, producer, and a leading figure in the Indian documentary landscape. His debut feature in 2016, the non-fiction political thriller, An Insignificant Man (co-directed with Khushboo Ranka) was internationally acclaimed, His work has attracted distinguished partnerships with Sundance, DocSociety, NFDC India, Asian Network of Documentaries, IDFA, and IDFA Bertha. His work has been previously celebrated at Warsaw Film Festival, Busan International Film Festival, BFI London and Sheffield Doc/Fest.

Khushboo Ranka | Producer

Khushboo Ranka is a producer, writer and director known for her Indian socio-political documentary An Insignificant Man (2016), along with Continuum (2006) and Ship of Theseus (2012).

Luke W Moody | Producer

Luke W Moody is a creative producer and curator most recently working with artists to develop new moving image work through his company LONO Studio. He is the former Director of Film Programming at the world-leading non-fiction film festival Sheffield Doc/Fest and previously he was Head of Film at Doc Society, co-commissioning long-form documentary cinema across six international film funds from development to completion.

About

About POV

Produced by American Documentary, POV is the longest-running independent documentary showcase on American television. Since 1988, POV has presented films on PBS that capture the full spectrum of the human experience, with a long commitment to centering women and people of color in front of, and behind, the camera. The series is known for introducing generations of viewers to groundbreaking works like Tongues Untied, American Promise, Minding The Gap and Not Going Quietly, and innovative filmmakers including Jonathan Demme, Laura Poitras and Nanfu Wang. In 2018, POV Shorts launched as one of the first PBS series dedicated to bold and timely short-form documentaries. All POV programs are available for streaming concurrent with broadcast on all station-branded PBS platforms, including PBS.org and the PBS App, available on iOS, Android, Roku streaming devices, Apple TV, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV, Samsung Smart TV, Chromecast and VIZIO. For more information about PBS Passport, visit the PBS Passport FAQ website.

POV goes “beyond the broadcast” to bring powerful nonfiction storytelling to viewers wherever they are. Free educational resources accompany every film and a community network of thousands of partners nationwide work with POV to spark dialogue around today’s most pressing issues. POV continues to explore the future of documentary through innovative productions with partners such as The New York Times and The National Film Board of Canada and on platforms including Snapchat and Instagram.

POV films and projects have won 46 Emmy Awards, 27 George Foster Peabody Awards, 15 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, three Academy Awards® and the first-ever George Polk Documentary Film Award. Learn more at pbs.org/pov and follow @povdocs on social media.

About American Documentary, Inc.

American Documentary, Inc. (AmDoc) is a multimedia company dedicated to creating, identifying and presenting contemporary stories that express opinions and perspectives rarely featured in mainstream media outlets. AmDoc is a catalyst for public culture, developing collaborative strategic engagement activities around socially relevant content on television, online and in community settings. These activities are designed to trigger action, from dialogue and feedback to educational opportunities and community participation.

Major funding for POV is provided by PBS, the Open Society Foundations, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Wyncote Foundation, Reva & David Logan Foundation, Park Foundation, and Perspective Fund. Additional funding comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Chasing the Dream and Peril and Promise public media initiatives of The WNET Group, Chris and Nancy Plaut, Ann Tenenbaum and Thomas H. Lee and public television viewers. POV is presented by a consortium of public television stations, including KQED San Francisco, WGBH Boston and THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG.