MUMBAI: Fire in the Blood, a feature-length documentary film produced by Sparkwater India, has been selected for the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, to be held from 17 to 23 January in Park City, Utah. USA.
It has been nominated for the coveted Grand Jury Prize. It is a unique achievement for an Indian film to be selected for this competitive section at what is considered to be the world‘s leading showcase for independent cinema.
"Sundance is the world‘s most prestigious platform for independent and documentary films, so for our first feature-length production to be selected is a truly immense honour", said writer, producer and director Dylan Mohan Gray.
"This, to the best of our knowledge, is the first documentary film of international scale and scope to come out of India, and to be chosen for the World Cinema Documentary Competition and nominated for the Grand Jury Prize out of a massive pool of submissions from talented filmmakers everywhere is extremely encouraging in terms of the future prospects for this film", he added.
Here it must be noted that this year, Sundance received a record 12,146 submissions among which were over 4000 feature-length films. From these, just 12 films from the US and 12 international films were selected for competition.
"Whenever anyone asks me what Fire in the Blood is all about, I always say it‘s about the crime of the century. I felt totally compelled to make this film because the historian in me first could not believe, and then could not accept that there was not a single film or even book in circulation which told this endlessly fascinating and important story," observed Gray.
Fire in the Blood is an intricate tale of ‘medicine, monopoly and malice. It tells the story of how Western pharmaceutical companies and governments aggressively blocked access to low-cost AIDS drugs for the countries of Africa and the global south in the years after 1996 - causing ten million or more unnecessary deaths - and the improbable group of people who decided to fight back.
