Malayali filmmaker Rintu Thomas' documentary nominated for Oscars

New Delhi: Rintu Thomas’ hard work and perseverance of five years have finally paid off as her latest work has entered the Oscar race. ‘Writing With Fire’ jointly produced by Rintu and Sushmit Ghosh has been selected to the final rounds of Oscars in the documentary feature category.

Raju Thomas and Shiji Raju, both natives of Pampady in Kottayam are Rintu’s parents. After completing BA Honours degree in English Literature from the renowned Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi, Rintu went on to do masters in Mass Communication at the Jamia Milia Islamia University. She had always dreamed to pursue a career in journalism.

It was at Jamia Milia that Rintu had learned more about documentary filmmaking. Sushmit was her classmate there. The two friends began producing documentaries, in 2009, under the banner of Black Ticket Films. Winning a grant instituted by the British Council for young filmmakers proved to be a turning point in the duo’s career. Their documentary ‘Miracle Water Village’ was aired on the National Geographic channel. This was then followed by the 18 minutes long documentary ‘Dilli’ and 27 minutes long ‘Timbuktu’. Rintu and Sushmit were overjoyed when this documentary won them the national award in 2012. Their next project was ‘'Writing With Fire’ by Rintu and Sushmit Ghosh is one of the five nominees in the documentary feature category of the Oscars.

“We had shot the documentary between 2016 and 2019. I and Sushmit did the writing and direction together. He did the cinematography while I managed the onsite recording. Both of us did most the editing too.

Good documentaries still have great scope in India. The OTT platforms too have opened amazing scope and opportunities. We haven’t been able to release ‘Writing With Fire’ in India yet; the discussions are still underway. We hope that the documentary could be released here during the summer holidays,” says Rintu.