India's Daughter

India's Daughter
Directed byLeslee Udwin
Written byLeslee Udwin
Produced byLeslee Udwin
CinematographyAbhay Anand, Harmeet Basur, Jehangir Choudhary, Mintu Kumar, Narender Kumar, Rajesh Kumar, Faroukh Mistry, Tushar Prakash, Anuradha Singh, Rajiv Singh
Edited byAnuradha Singh
Music byKrsna Solo
Production
companies
  • Assassin Films
  • Tathagat Films[2]
Distributed byBerta Film
Release date
  • 4 March 2015 (2015-03-04)
[1]
Running time
63 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
Languages

India's Daughter is a documentary film directed by Leslee Udwin and is part of the BBC's ongoing Storyville series.[3] The film is based on the 2012 Delhi gang rape and murder of 22-year-old Jyoti Singh, aliased "Nirbhaya", who was a physiotherapy student.[4][5] The documentary explores the events of the night of 16 December 2012, the protests which were sparked both nationally and internationally as a result of the assault, and the lives of the men before they committed the attack.[6] The film is told through the use of reconstructed footage and interviews with those involved in the case, including the defence lawyers, psychiatrists, and one of the rapists.[7][8]

The film was scheduled to be aired on TV channels around the world on 8 March 2015, to coincide with International Women's Day. However, when excerpts of the film, which included an interview with Mukesh Singh, one of the four men convicted of the rape and murder, were broadcast, a court stay order prohibiting the telecast was obtained by the Indian police.[9] The BBC complied with the request and did not air the film in India. It aired outside of India on 4 March, was uploaded on YouTube, and soon went viral via shares on social media. On 5 March, the Indian government directed YouTube to block the video in India.[4][8] The film was later removed from YouTube by the BBC, due to its being a copyright violation.[10]

  1. ^ Bhatt, Abhinav (5 March 2015). "After India's Ban, Nirbhaya Documentary 'India's Daughter' Aired by BBC". NDTV. Retrieved 5 March 2015.
  2. ^ "India's Daughter". CBC. 7 March 2015. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  3. ^ "Interview with Delhi gang rapist left 'stain on my soul', says British film maker". The Daily Telegraph. 3 March 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
  4. ^ a b "India asks YouTube to block banned rape film". Yahoo News. 5 March 2015. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
  5. ^ "India bans TV stations from showing interview with man who raped student". The Guardian. 4 March 2014. Retrieved 6 March 2015.
  6. ^ Lodhia, Sharmila (1 May 2015). "From "living corpse" to India's daughter: Exploring the social, political and legal landscape of the 2012 Delhi gang rape". Women's Studies International Forum. 50: 89–101. doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2015.03.007. ISSN 0277-5395. S2CID 141527164.
  7. ^ Khan, Tabassum "Ruhi" (19 October 2016). "India's Daughter". Visual Anthropology. 29 (4–5): 454–456. doi:10.1080/08949468.2016.1192413. ISSN 0894-9468. S2CID 152026583.
  8. ^ a b Ahmad, Naomi (19 May 2015). "India's Daughter: How the story of Jyoti Singh became "their" story and not "ours"". Academia.edu.
  9. ^ "Dec 16 documentary: Media trials tend to influence judges, says HC". Archived from the original on 13 March 2015. Retrieved 27 March 2015. Delhi Police approached a lower court last week to prevent the broadcast on International Women's Day.
  10. ^ "BBC asks YouTube to take down 'India's Daughter' for copyright violation". Hindustan Times. 7 March 2015. Retrieved 7 March 2020.