Aanchal Kapur

ANAanchal's love for cinema dates back to her childhood days, when during the summer holidays her parents would take their two daughters to Sapru House (a hub for children's films) in New Delhi. They would also make sure that the girls saw the black and white reels before every commercial film in the theatre, much of which was in the 'documentary' format. This interest grew in her student and early years as a gender and rights specialist, as she was exposed to the work of independent filmmakers. She recognised the need to use documentary films on human rights, development, environment, social and women’s issues in her work as a practitioner.

In the year 2000, she founded the Kriti Film Club, as a documentary screening initiative of her non-profit organisation - KRITI: a development praxis andcommunication team. The film club screens, curates and distributes documentary films on peace, human rights, development environment, labour, violence against women, children’s and women's rights, mental health, disability, etc. among diverse audiences across India. These screenings have been held monthly in New Delhi since the initiation, in Mumbai since 2019 and online since March 2020.

Aanchal has conceptualised and organised several issue-based, mini film festivals over the past 22 years, across the country. She likes to collaborate with peer and student based organisations to screen relevant films on a regular basis. One of her key roles at these screenings is to facilitate filmmaker-audience conversations, as her mission is to present #thoughtprovokingcinema #cinemaforsocialaction 

Aanchal uses her knowledge and practitioner experience of over three decades in the social sector with films as a tool to enable thinking and action that is issue and content person. When audience leaves a Kriti Film Club screening, Aanchal knows that she has 'triggered' some change in their thinking, behaviour and pushed them towards taking some affirmative action around the subject and/ or takeaways from the film they have watched. Aanchal is keen to take documentary cinema to students across social, economic and geographical backgrounds as also 'unconverted audience' who she believes are all significant players as citizens of India.

In the summer of 2020, the Kriti Film Club showed documentary films for 102 days of the lockdown by sharing their links through its social media and blog.

Learning from experience, Aanchal decided to revive an online space that she had created a few years earlier but not able to operationalise. This led to the beginnings of online screenings on the Kriti Film Club’s portal www.doculive.blogspot.com

In November 2020, Aanchal curated the first South Asian Feminist Film Festival for Sangat, a South Asian Women’s Network and hosted the festival online on the above platform. From January to April 2021, Aanchal managed and hosted another online film festival in collaboration with One Billion Rising South Asia and Sangat – the Rising Gardens Film Festival. Subsequently, Aanchal curated the second edition of the Sangat film festival, titled ‘Beyond Borders Feminist Film Festival’ in 2021; Me, We and Us Film Festival on Self and Collective Care in 2021; the Jacaranda Film Festival on Women and Nature in March 2022. She then curated the One Billion Rising Travelling Film Festival 2022, which was held in-person during May-June 2022, across eight Indian locations. In November-December 2022, Aanchal curated and organised the 3rd edition of the Beyond Borders Feminist Film Festival in a hybrid format.

Aanchal has been closely involved (as curator and jury) with the film festivals such as the PSBT Open Frame, IAWRT, Jeevika Film Festival, Dharamshala International Film Festival, Chalti Tasveerein, Vibgyor and the Auroville Film Festival, and is committed to using documentaries for social change.

Aanchal is also a member of International Association of Women in Radio & Television (IAWRT) India and the Bitchitra Collective - Indian Women in Documentary

Aanchal Kapur has 32 years of work experience as a facilitator-trainer, documentation and communication specialist. She works with a gender and intersectionalities approach in building capacities, advising and strengthening developmental programming in the social sector. 

Among the other initiatives spearheaded by Aanchal are 'Our Diary' (an annual planner documenting peoples movements), Gestures (a livelihoods support initiative), Rightscape (offers students, activists and professionals the opportunity for volunteering and making their contributions to the development, environment and human rights space) and Astitva (a women and child centred community programme in Dehradun). 

Aanchal has a MSc. in Development Studies (Gender, Social Policy and Planning), from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and a Masters in Political Science from Jawaharlal Nehru University. She graduated from Lady Shriram College for Women with a Bachelors’ in Political Science.

Aanchal works and lives out of Bombay and New Delhi.

aanchal_kapur@hotmail.com/ space.kriti@gmail.com

https://krititeam.blogspot.com

https://doculive.blogspot.com/

www.gestures.in

https://sutra.vikalpsangam.org/

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