Kanwar, a 1998 MacArthur Fellow, won the Golden Sink Award for Best Film at the 1998 Mumbai International Documentary Film Festival for his film Time to Take to the Streets. His next film, Night of Prophecy (2002), was shot in several different regions of India and features music and poetry of tragedy and protest performed by local artists.

“Sharma’s Final Solution (2003) vividly documents the changing face of right-wing politics in India through an exploration of the 2002 Gujarat riots. The film was banned by the Indian censors, despite the fact that it was recognized at international film festivals.

Other Indian films that have performed well at international film festivals include When Our Friends Meet by Rahul Roy, a film about male sexuality; Barf Snow, a film by Saba Devan about trekking with slum girls; and Into the Abyss, a film by Vandana Kohli about depression, for which he won the 2003 RAPA award in India for best director.

The Mumbai International Film Festival of Documentaries, Shorts and Animated Films was launched in 1990 as a competitive biennial event organized by the Film Department in close collaboration with the Government of Maharashtra. At this festival, an international jury selects outstanding films in various categories to receive Gold and Silver Sinks and substantial cash prizes. The festival aims to serve as a platform where filmmakers from around the world can meet and exchange ideas, explore co-production opportunities and market their films.

In August 2003, more than 300 Indian documentary filmmakers came together to protest the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting’s attempt to make censorship certificates a prerequisite for Indian documentaries to participate in the 2004 Mumbai International Film Festival. The documentary community saw this seemingly innocuous move as part of a broader pattern of control and repression, where the rights to freedom of speech, dissent, and even creative expression in India are increasingly under threat. In an unprecedented display of collective resistance, filmmakers from across the country organized around the Campaign Against Censorship and successfully forced the ministry to abandon its attempts to impose censorship certification on the festival. The filmmakers then went on to launch the independent documentary film festival Vikalp – Films for Freedom. After a stop in Bangalore, the celluloid caravan headed to Trivandrum, Chennai, Delhi and Kolkata.