Oscars 2022: Writing With Fire directors Rintu Thomas, Sushmit Ghosh react to film’s nomination

On Tuesday, Writing With Fire became the first Indian documentary feature to get an Oscar nomination. It is in the running for the prestigious Academy Award alongside four other films– Ascension, Attica, Flee, and Summer of Soul ( Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). The awards ceremony is scheduled to be held on March 27.

Also read: 94th Academy Awards Nominees: Dune to Andrew Garfield, read the full list of Oscar nominations here

Helmed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, Writing With Fire documents the inspiring story of Khabar Lehriya, a vibrant community newspaper in multiple dialects — Bundeli, Avadhi and Bajjika — run by women from marginalised communities in Bihar’s Sitamarhi district and UP’s Banda district.

The narrative of Writing With Fire, which won top awards at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, traces the journey of the newspaper from the print to the digital medium, with the women leading it becoming daring smartphone journalists. Supported by the Sundance Institute, the documentary was shot over five years, following the paths of the newspaper’s chief reporter and the crime reporter as they negotiate what can at times be a difficult and dangerous world for women like them.

After the Oscar nominations were announced and Writing With Fire bagged a place on the shortlist, directors Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh expressed their excitement on social media. 

The story of the citizen journalists who run Khabar Lehriya and have overseen its makeover from print to digital has been greeted with high praise by just about every film trade magazine in the United States.

The San Francisco Chronicle, though, may have nailed it when it said: “Even (Bob) Woodward and (Carl) Bernstein would be inspired by the women reporters of India’s Writing with Fire,” The two American journalists with Washington Post had blown the lid off the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

(With inputs from news agencies)