ALGORITHMSIndia | 2012 | HDV | B&W | 109 mins
English, Hindi, Tamil, Odiya with English subtitles
In India, a group of boys dream of becoming Chess Masters, driven by a man with a vision. But this is no ordinary chess and these are no ordinary players. Algorithms is a documentary on the thriving but little known world of Blind Chess in India.
Filmed over three years, Algorithms travels with three talented boys and a totally blind player turned pioneer to competitive national and world championships and visits them in their home milieu where they reveal their struggles, anxieties and hopes.
Going beyond sight and story, this observational sport docu with a difference moves through the algorithms of the blind chess world challenging the sighted of what it means to see. It allows for the tactile and thoughtful journey that explores foresight, sight and vision to continue long after the moving image ends.
The documentary was praised in India and surely, it deserves a bigger international platform. The director and his team are now looking to secure an international premiere at a top film festival outside India. It had its World Premiere at the International Film Festival of India in Nov 2012. It was also a Film Bazaar Recommended (FBR) film at the industry event parallel to IFFI and screeners have been taken by visiting festivals.
For this, the film needs to be regraded. The original picture grading was not done to a big screen projector. But this is expensive. Also, the teams wants to take the desired high quality outputs (HD CAM, DCP etc), which again are very expensive. McDonald's team has little time to raise funds. They have now decided to go down the crowd-funding route with a Kickstarter campaign. The target is £10,000 in 45 days. If they fail to reach the target they get nothing!
Crowd funding a project through Kickstarter is slowly becoming the most viable way for documentary filmmakers and now one-third of films that come to festivals are funded this way. In fact, the Oscar award for short documentary went to a Kickstarter film this year!
Going beyond sight and story, this observational sport docu with a difference moves through the algorithms of the blind chess world challenging the sighted of what it means to see. It allows for the tactile and thoughtful journey that explores foresight, sight and vision to continue long after the moving image ends.
The documentary was praised in India and surely, it deserves a bigger international platform. The director and his team are now looking to secure an international premiere at a top film festival outside India. It had its World Premiere at the International Film Festival of India in Nov 2012. It was also a Film Bazaar Recommended (FBR) film at the industry event parallel to IFFI and screeners have been taken by visiting festivals.
For this, the film needs to be regraded. The original picture grading was not done to a big screen projector. But this is expensive. Also, the teams wants to take the desired high quality outputs (HD CAM, DCP etc), which again are very expensive. McDonald's team has little time to raise funds. They have now decided to go down the crowd-funding route with a Kickstarter campaign. The target is £10,000 in 45 days. If they fail to reach the target they get nothing!
Would you like to support this very special chess documentary? Here is the Kickstarter Campaign link for 'Algorithms'.
Crowd funding a project through Kickstarter is slowly becoming the most viable way for documentary filmmakers and now one-third of films that come to festivals are funded this way. In fact, the Oscar award for short documentary went to a Kickstarter film this year!
