Vinay Shukla’s While We Watched wins Peabody Award

Vinay Shukla’s newsroom drama While We Watched has won a Peabody Award in the documentary segment.

The film’s official X handle made the announcement on Friday with the caption, “For its powerful defense of independent journalism and its poignant portrait of everyday courage in the face of radicalized politics and publics, While We Watched wins a Peabody.”

While We Watched follows the life of former NDTV journalist Ravish Kumar and poses questions on the changing nature of media in India. Ravish congratulated the team for the win via an X post. In Hindi, he wrote, “Vinay Shukla, a great congratulations to you. I learnt from you how different is the patience of a filmmaker and adopted it in my life. Aman, Reshma, Kalhan, Abhinav, I remember your patience and dedication every day. This award is for your hard work and thinking.”

Ravish also remembered the film’s executive producer Jess Search, who lost her life to brain cancer in 2023. “This film of yours showed me a different world. I got a chance to meet a wonderful personality full of love and courage in London. Her name is Jess Search. Jess is no longer in this world but in a few hours of meeting with her, I got a lifetime of memories. I salute her courage. The love I got from her cannot be shared. I knew that she was in the last moments of her life but she came for the screening of the film. She kept talking to me as if she had just come into this world and who talks about leaving. May God always give Jess shelter and comfort in his beautiful world. Congratulations to all of you again.”

The film had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) in 2022, where it won the Amplify Voices Award. Its Asian premiere was at Busan International Film Festival the same year where it won the Cinephile Award.