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8 months ago
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Five international-themed films are competing for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards this year, stories set in Uganda, Chile, Tunisia, Ukraine, and India. To Kill a Tiger, which has brought director Nisha Pahuja the first Oscar nomination of her career, centers on a poor couple in the Indian state Jharkhand who bravely fought for justice after their teenage daughter became the victim of a brutal sexual assault.
“It literally is this David and Goliath story,” Pahuja said as she appeared at Deadline’s Contenders Film: The Nominees. “We were surprised, I think, by their courage and their resilience, and we kept thinking at some point maybe they were going to cave.”
Ranjit, father of 13-year-old Kiran, faced intense pressure to drop charges against the three young men accused of attacking his daughter.
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“It came from all angles,” Pahuja said. “Obviously, there was the boys’ families, the ward member who’s sort of a local elected official. Then there was the mukhiya who’s sort of the mayor of the region, and all of them wanted Ranjit to marry Kiran to one of her rapists. That was the idea. And they felt … to actually seek justice meant that not only were they bringing shame upon their own family, but they were bringing shame upon the village and the community and that this was better left sorted in the village.”
Growing tensions in the village led to death threats against Ranjit, his family and the documentary crew. The film also documents court appearances and pre-trial meetings during which Ranjit, a man from a lower caste, encountered the intimidating intricacies of India’s judicial system. Pahuja and her editor, Mike Munn, faced the challenge of balancing multiple elements to a complex story — the personal and the legal.
“We knew that it wasn’t primarily going to be a procedural film,” Munn observed during the Contenders panel discussion. “We didn’t want to lose track sight of the fact that it’s really a character study, primarily of Ranjit and his hero’s journey. … It was really Ranjit’s journey and point of view that was driving the story.”
Check back Monday for the panel video.
