संजय काक / Sanjay Kak
Sanjay Kak is an independent documentary film-maker whose recent work reflects his interests in ecology, alternatives and resistance politics. His films Words on Water (about the struggle against large dams in the Narmada valley in central India), and In the forest hangs a bridge (about the Adi tribe in Arunachal, north-east India, gathering to build a 1000 ft long bridge of cane and bamboo), have been widely screened both in India and abroad. Words on Water (2003) won Best Long Film prize at the International Festival of Environmental Film & Video, Brazil. 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 film work 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 & Environment, New Delhi. As Producer and Director he has also made twinned films on the theme of migration, This Land, My Land, Eng-Land! (1993) looking at people of Indian origin in the fringes of the city of London and A House and a Home (1993) in post-apartheid South Africa. He has also made Cambodia: Angkor Remembered (1990), a reflection on the monument and its place in Khmer society.
In 2008 he participated in the Manifesta7, the European Biennale of Art, in Bolzano, Italy, with the installation A Shrine to the Future: The memory of a hill, about the mining of bauxite in the Niyamgiri hills of Orissa.
Born in 1958, Sanjay read Economics and Sociology at Delhi University, and is a self-taught filmmaker who first discovered the documentary while working in television (1984-1990). Based in New Delhi, he is actively involved in the Indian documentary film movement, as part of the Films for Freedom platform, the Delhi Film Archive, and in the Campaign against Censorship.