Vivek Chaudhary wins our first Whicker DocEdge Kolkata Bursary

Following a fantastic pitch at this year’s Docedge Kolkata, we were very happy to announce the first winner of our Whicker Docedge Bursary Award as Vivek Chaudhary and his project ‘I, Poppy‘. A surprising and insightful documentary set in the filmaker’s homeland, rural Rajasthan, Vikek’s film explores the little known world of the legal opium trade. At the heart of the story there is an extraordinary Dalit grandmother and her high minded, risk taking teacher son who made us laugh and, we suspect, is destined to make us cry.

Vivek Chaudhary is a filmmaker from Ahmedabad, India and has been making documentaries for about 5 years. He has a keen interest in films relating to human rights, mental health and women’s rights. This is his first feature-length documentary over 50 minutes. His previous film, titled Goonga Pehelwan, was based on India’s most successful differently-abled athlete Virender Singh and followed his quest to reach the Rio Olympics 2016.