Not many of us may be aware, but there is a chess-community of visually impaired youngsters in India. Capturing this in a black and white documentary are UK-based documentary filmmaker Ian Mcdonald and Indian producer Geetha J. who present Algorithms in collaboration with Vikalp at Everest Talkies on July 24 at 7 p.m.
Charudatta Jadhav from Mumbai, is visually impaired but has a vision to put India on the global blind chess map. The film follows a group of boys — Darpan Inani from Baroda, SaiKrishna S.T. from Chennai and Anant Kumar Nayak from Bhubaneshwar who are visually impaired but dream of becoming world champions.
Algorithms makes you laugh, cry and celebrate life and the spirit of endurance these youngsters display.
Excited about showing their film in Bangalore, Ian says they look forward to spreading awareness. After screening the film at 20 international festivals and winning six awards, he says: “Though we struggled to make the film, we do feel a sense of vindication because it spreads awareness on a community of visually impaired chess players in India who both deserve and crave visibility.”
On what inspired him to work on the film, Ian says it was in 2006, when he was in Trivandrum working with Geetha on a short documentary on Kalaripayattu, that he saw a newspaper report on a chess tournament for visually impaired kids.
“That made me curious, as I had never heard of chess for the visually impaired. Unable to pursue it at that time, I cut out the report and kept it in my wallet, where it stayed for two years. The story never left me. Eventually Geetha and I decided to look into this further. So in 2008 we met Charudatta Jadhav from the All India Chess Federation for the Blind, and he invited us to a national tournament in Mumbai, where we were amazed to come across hundreds of visually impaired players competing against each other. Algorithms began at this point. What I didn’t know then was that this would be the start of a three-year shoot that would take us to numerous cities across India and to three countries in Europe!”
On why the film is in black and white, the duo say the images had a much greater intensity and an intimacy in black and white which allowed for an immersive experience. Ian adds: “I think my shooting style and the subject matter of both ‘visual impairment’ and ‘chess’ also lent itself to black and white. Not one person has ever come up to us and said it they would have liked to have seen this film in colour.”
About the name, the duo said: “We wanted something a bit abstract but still relevant. We wanted the audience to ask the same question. Why ‘Algorithms’? This automatically puts the audience in active mode. They are thinking, asking questions and trying to work things out. That’s important for a documentary like ours where there is no voice-over and no explanation. In a sense it relates to both chess and the blind. Before making their first step, the visually impaired have to have a sense of the next 10 steps. They have to think algorithmically to navigate their way through life. This is also the case in chess. Also, algorithms originated in India like chess, going to Europe through Persia. So, the name has numerous connections.”
On what they wanted people to carry back from the film, Ian and Geetha assert that this is not a film with a message. “We are not trying to teach anyone lessons. That is not our philosophy of filmmaking. Our only guiding principle was to be as true to the subject matter as possible, and to be true to and respectful of the characters. We trust the audience to find their own meaning in the film. And they have.”
Visual impairment is a disability because society chooses not to use available technology to allow the visually impaired to be independent, says Ian and Geetha. “Do not pity the visually impaired. Do not romanticise it. If there is a message in Algorithms , then let it be this: visual impairment is not a lack, but just another way of being in the world. The sighted can learn much from this way of being: the importance of touch and tactility, the difference between vision and sight, the importance of foresight over eyesight.”
