Bangalore has become a sort of hub for screening of documentary films with such organisations like Films for Freedom, Pedestrian Films and Centre for Film and Drama.

Last weekend there was screening of a feature length documentary film on Kashmir called Jashn-e-Azadi (How we celebrate freedom) by Delhi-based independent documentary film-maker, Sanjay Kak. He was personally present at the screening.

“Kashmir is a difficult place for any kind of media representation. How do you operate in a place where the first casualty is truth. I took almost a year to shoot this film and another year to edit it”, he said speaking to Metrolife on the eve of the screening.

The film raises disturbing questions about freedom in Kashmir while exploring the implications of relentless struggle for freedom in the valley. “I had my limitations while shooting. I couldn’t shoot an army when it was in operation, but I was able to shoot their public outreach programme, Operation Sadbhavana.”

On the travails of making a documentary films he says, “The business of how a documentary film is funded and made differs from individual to individual.

It was possible for me to make this film because my previous film Words on water (2003) on the anti-dam movement in the Narmada Valley won the Best Long Film prize at the Internacional Festival of Environment Film and Video, Brazil.

The prize brought in Rs 6.5 lakh. During the post production I got funding from a Holland organisation which organises the International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam.”

Sanjay Kak has come a long way since he made his first documentary, Kinnore ke log (1983) about Kinnore, a village in Himachal Pradesh. He has won prizes at Envirofilm, Slovakia; Vatavaran Environmental Film Festival, New Delhi; and International Video Festival, Trivandrum.

His film In the forest hangs a bridge (1999) received the “Golden Lotus” for Best Documentary Film at the 1999 National Film Awards in India. The film also won the “Asian Gaze” Award at the Pusan Short Film Festival, Korea.

His  works includes One Weapon (1997), a video about democracy in the 50th year of Indian independence, and Harvest of Rain (1995), made in association with the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi.

His films on the theme of migration, looking at people of Indian origin in the fringes of London city. This Land, My Land, EngLand! (1993) and in post-apartheid South Africa.

A House and a Home (1993) have been widely screened. He has also produced and directed Cambodia: Angkor Remember-ed (1990), a reflection on the monument and its place in Khmer society.

Born in Pune in 1958, Sanjay Kak attended St Stephen’s College, Delhi and the Delhi School of Economics where he read Economics and Sociology. In Delhi he has been active in the Campaign Against Censorship in India, and works closely with the Delhi Film Archive.