The Department of Multi Media and Mass Communication organised a very enlightening online workshop on ‘Grants and Markets For Creative Documentaries ’ and ‘Crowdfunding For Independent Films’ on 4 September, 2021. The guest speakers for the session were Mr. Samarth Mahajan, who is a non- fiction filmmaker. Very well known for his national award -winning debut feature film ‘The Unreserved’ and his second feature ‘Borderlands’ which explores how everyday lives intertwine with borders in the Indian subcontinent.

The second speaker for the day was Ms. Nupur Agrawal, who after solo-backpacking across India and South Asia for 18 months, directed a film where she hitchhiked along India's west-coast enquiring the lives of truck drivers. An alumnus from IIT Kharagpur, she worked on 'Borderlands', as the Executive Producer & Associate Director with Mr. Samarth Mahajan. Supported by one of the largest crowdfunding campaigns for an Indian film, it featured at the 2020 Cannes Film Market.

The first session about the ‘Grants and Markets for Creative Documentaries’ taken by Mr. Samarth Mahajan started with him discussing the true meaning of a documentary. He also talked about what all it takes to make a documentary from a very layman point of view. For example the economics of the entire production, which includes the grants, pre production costs, post production costs, sales and a lot more. He also emphasised on the small details that make up for a good documentary/short film, like: story arc, social relevance, cinematic representation, and strong limited characters. The entire session was quite interesting and easily understandable because of the presentations and the short clips that were presented during the meet.

The second session on ‘Crowdfunding for Independent Films’ was taken by Ms. Nupur Agrawal, who majorly talked about the fundamentals of crowdfunding for independent films.She mentioned how it’s an entire process of hardwork and most importantly the connections we make around the industry and different media agencies. Ms. Nupur also elaborated on how India’s crowdfunding market is still nascent but international markets can be very helpful in the execution of the project. She also presented their own video of crowdfunding proposal for the documentary ‘The Borderlands’ and how one can start even if there is zero capital present.

The entire session was quite interesting because of the engagement from the speakers and the audience as well. The students showed keen interest in knowing more about the market for the independent films and how one can start working on their own idea from scratch.