Announcing the winner: The Whickers 2026 Docedge Kolkata Bursary Winner

On Sunday 8 March, The Whickers’ Ambassador for India, Mandakini Gahlot, announced the winner of the 8th Whicker DocEdge Bursary Award. The £3,000 prize was awarded to first-time documentary director Manisha Halai for her beautiful and deeply personal film, Orange, Beetle, Mother & I.

As climate change threatens her family’s orange orchards, the filmmaker returns home, caught between a mother holding on to a disappearing way of life, a sister longing to leave, and her own evolving relationship with memory, identity and love.

Orange, Beetle, Mother & I is a richly layered exploration of family dynamics set against the backdrop of climate change and a rapidly transforming society.  While deeply personal, centred on her own family, the film speaks to universal themes, including environmental change, the loss of traditional ways of life, and the tensions between generations. It is this balance of intimacy and wider relevance that makes the project so compelling.

Directed by a young filmmaker from Arunachal Pradesh in North East India, Manisha is the first woman in her tribe to become a filmmaker.  She won over the room with her brilliant pitch, which was equal parts funny, poignant and sincere and made a powerful impact with the DocEdge audience!

The project is produced by Rintu Thomas, director of the Oscar-nominated Writing with Fire.

There were also special mentions for 2 projects who also made a huge impact on our selectors.  These were Every Home Ablaze, by Sadia Rao and Karanjit Singh and Whisper of the Warm Spring by Samstan Gurmat and Sonam Nurboo.

Every Home Ablaze is a highly original story set amidst Punjab’s deadly Opioid epidemic.  Three high-school boys fictionalise the experiences of their townsfolk in Instagram reels, confronting their community’s collective grief and the digital rituals performed to cope.

Whisper of the Warm Spring is set in a snow leopard habitat in the high altitude Himalayan region of Ladakh, a young shepherdess defies societal pressure and predators to protect her pashmina goats and dreams of building a compassionate animal sanctuary in the mountains.

To watch the recipients receive their awards, head over to our YouTube channel.

DocedgeKolkata is an annual documentary incubation-cum-pitching forum for Indian and Asian filmmakers. The forum is dedicated to the intensive development of creative storytelling skills and the creation of international co-production opportunities through a weeklong programme of incubation labs, film screenings,talks, and masterclasses is followed by a 3 day pitching forum in front of industry leaders from around the world.

Find out more about the bursary scheme HERE.