Directors/Producers: Ipshita Bhattacharyya, Koval Bhatia, Veda Shastri Producers: Gabriel Diamond, Sky Dylan-Robbins, Phil Collis

Description:

In rural Uttar Pradesh, where caste and patriarchy often dictate a girl's future, Babita's life seemed destined for early marriage and domestic duty. Born into a Dalit family and forced to shoulder responsibilities after her mother's death, she gave up dreams of college to care for her home. A turning point came when with the support of a women's self help group, she began training to be a drone pilot to help with farming. As her district's first certified female drone pilot, Babita transforms skepticism into pride, inspiring young women to delay early marriage and pursue financial independence.

Biography:

Ipshita Bhattacharyya is an independent filmmaker who has directed and produced broadcast documentaries across diverse landscapes. She he founded Reel Nomads, a filmmaking collective telling compassionate, purpose-driven stories. Her work explores climate change, culture and conservation, often in grassroots India. Collaborating with global broadcasters and social organisations, she creates films on environment, gender and human rights, capturing deep community bonds and inspiring change, one powerful story at a time.

Koval Bhatia began her journey in documentary filmmaking as the producer of Against The Tide, which won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance Film Festival. Her work has been supported by Sundance Documentary Fund, Catapult Fund, HotDocs, SFFILM, IDFA, Al Jazeera, etc. She was also awarded the Emerging Producer's Bursary by the World Congress for Science and Factual Producers. She has headed A Little Anarky Films, a prominent production company based in India, for the past decade.

Veda Shastri is currently a senior producer at National Geographic. She was earlier a staff video journalist on The New York Times’ immersive storytelling team. For her work at the NYTimes, she has won an Online Journalism Award and an Edward R. Murrow Award. Veda has produced over 100 virtual reality stories and documentaries for the NYTimes, from the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, inside a Black Hawk in Puerto Rico, to the lava fields of Iceland. Prior to her work at the NYT, she directed and edited Ladies Only, following women taxi drivers in New Delhi in the backdrop of sexual harassment, and Return to Chernobyl, a short VR documentary for PBS Frontline. 

Contact Information:

e: festival.sspfilms@gmail.com 
w: videoconsortium.org/programs/solutions-storytelling-project