IDSFFK to honour documentary filmmaker Rakesh Sharma with Lifetime Achievement Award

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Rakesh Sharma has been chosen for the Lifetime Achievement Award of the 17th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK) organised by the Kerala State Chalachitra Academy. The recognition is in honour of his fearless filmmaking, steadfast commitment to social justice, and transformative impact of his works on Indian documentary cinema. The award comprising ₹2 lakh, a certificate, and a statuette will be presented during the festival which will be held from August 22 to 27 at the Kairali Theatre complex in Thiruvananthapuram. A retrospective of his films will be screened at the festival.

He is best known for his ground-breaking 2004 documentary Final Solution on the 2002 Gujarat pogrom. Through an in-depth analysis of the carnage and documenting the travails of the victims, he explored the rise and consolidation of hard-line Hindutva politics and laid bare on film the clinical precision with which the violence was carried out. The documentary has been screened at over 120 international film festivals and remains a seminal work among Indian documentaries. Despite an initial ban by the Indian Censor Board, the film was later cleared without cuts following public outcry. Final Solution won the National Film Award in 2006.

Beginning his career as Shyam Benegal’s assistant with Bharat Ek Khoj, Sharma worked on several projects for Doordarshan, BBC and Channel4, UK. He later played a pivotal role in the early years of Indian satellite television, contributing to the launch of prominent channels including Channel [V], Star Plus India, and Vijay TV. He returned to independent filmmaking with the Robert Flaherty Prize winning 2002 documentary Aftershocks: The Rough Guide to Democracy, exploring the grassroots resistance in post-earthquake Gujarat.

Despite facing institutional pushback, his work reached audiences through alternate platforms. Final Solution premiered in India at the independent protest festival ‘Vikalp’ and made history at the Berlin International Film Festival, becoming the first documentary to win the Best Debut Feature award. His work has been extensively screened in over a 100 cities and dozens of universities worldwide, and shown on TV channels like BBC, NHK, DR2, YLE etc.

For over two decades, Rakesh has focussed his work on the politics of hate and filmed extensively in Gujarat, Maharashtra and elsewhere. After long years of autoimmune-related enforced medical sabbaticals, Rakesh has now resumed postproduction and is nearing the completion of his semi-finished, long-delayed films, including Final Solution Revisited, the much-awaited follow-up to Final Solution.

The IDSFFK Lifetime Achievement Award was previously bestowed upon Anand Patwardhan (2018), Madhusree Dutta (2019), Ranjan Palit (2021), Reena Mohan (2022), Deepa Dhanraj (2023), and Naresh Bedi & Rajesh Bedi (2024).