Film phase:Completed
SYNOPSIS
Outside Kolkata a few jute mills crank on, virtually unchanged since the industrial revolution. Powered by steam and sweat, work is a dance to the dictate of profit and century-old machines. The Golden Thread follows the weft and warp of jute work, from farm to factories, to discover deeply entwined lives in the vast ecosystem which stands threatened today.
The Golden Thread was supported through Nishtha Jain’s 2020 Chicken & Egg Award.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Nishtha Jain (she/her) is an internationally-recognized filmmaker based in Mumbai best known for Gulabi Gang (2012), Lakshmi and Me (2007) and City of Photos (2004). Her films interrogate lived experience at the intersection of gender, caste and class. They explore the political in the personal and uncover the mechanisms of privilege. Jain is a Chicken & Egg Award winner (2020); Member of the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences (AMPAS); Film Independent Global Media Maker Fellow (2019-20); and Recipient of Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Fellowship (2019). After postgraduate training at Jamia Mass Communication Research Centre, New Delhi, she pursued Film Direction at the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, prior to launching a career in independent cinema.
She works across various platforms –documentary, narrative, virtual reality and TV series. Her films have been widely screened at film festivals and art-house cinemas and broadcast on TV and have won over 25 international awards and have been reviewed by print-media and academic journals. Jain has served as a juror at IDFA, ZFF, Cinema Verité and IDSFFK. She’s given lectures and master classes at numerous film festivals and universities internationally, including Stanford, NYU, Wellesley College, UCSB, Northwestern University, UT Austin, Cambridge University, University of London, St. Andrews University, Heidelberg, Danish Film School, FTII Pune, India, Satyajit Ray Film & TV Institute.
ABOUT THE PRODUCER
Irena Taskovski (she/her) is the CEO & founder of Taskovski Films network, a London based world sales & production company with offices across Europe. Irena is currently working as film consultant and expert on marketing, sales, financing and festivals for many film institutions including HBO Europe, TRT world, Asian Cinema Fund, Dok.incubator CZ, Sources Germany, and works as the Head Tutor at Emerging Producers – at Ji.hlava IDFF CZ. Irena is the founder of the training program initiative art of creative producing and distribution, Film Academy for Conscious Creative leaders and film residencies. Irena studied in Prague, graduating from FAMU. She also studied at the Sam Spiegel Film and TV School in Jerusalem and obtained a Master’s degree from the National Film & Television School in London, UK. She also has multiple credits in filmography as the producer of The Golden Thread (2022 documentary), Tales from the Prison Cell (2020 Documentary), as a co- producer on Ukrainian Sheriffs (2015 Documentary) and Surire (2015 Documentary), and executive producer on Who Will Be a Gurkha (2012 Documentary). Before these, she had multiple credits as a producer on All for the Good of the World and Nosovice! (2010 Documentary), Czech Peace (2010 Documentary), Czech Dream (2004 Documentary), and The Guest (2003 Short).