“Algorithms” is one of the 134 documentary features submitted for the 2014 Oscar Race. We spoke with director Ian McDonald and producer Geetha J at a private screening of the film at Technicolor screening room.
Film Synopsis: In India, a group of boys dream of becoming Chess Grandmasters. But this is no ordinary chess and these are no ordinary players. Algorithms is a documentary that transports us into the little known world of Blind Chess. Chess is an ancient and universal game with origins in India. Filmed over three years in different parts of India, Algorithms follows three boys and an adult champion who not only aspires to bring global recognition to India’s blind chess players, but also wants to encourage all blind children to play chess. The filmmakers travel with the players to competitive tournaments, including the World Junior Blind Chess Championship. They also film them in their home milieu where they reveal their struggles, anxieties and hopes. Moving through the algorithms of the blind chess world, the film is a tactile and mindful journey that challenges the notion of what it means to “see.”
What attracted you to the project?
Ian: We stumbled across this topic in India back in 2006. Read a small newspaper report about children that played blind chess which got us curious so we looked into it a bit more and investigated it. Curiosity turned to amazement that there was a thriving hidden community of blind chess players in India that no one knew of including Indians. Indian chess players! They didn’t know so we thought this is a subject that needed to be looked into, so that’s where we started really.
Why a documentary?
Ian: Well I’m a sociologist, that’s my background, so I deal with the real world and try to understand the real world, so a documentary for me started off as a kind of sociological practice and sociological inquiry to the world and then trying to use a particular aesthetic device and aesthetic camera work to convey a sense of emotion , meaning, and intimacy with the subject. I’m interested in the real world and not interested in running from the real world to discover different worlds.
Why did you chose to shoot in black and white?
Ian: Color was getting in the way of a sense of intimacy and emotion with the footage, you see it’s a very intimate subject dealing with an enclosed community through young players and their close relationship with the coachm so to give that sense of intimacy and the audience that connection , we wanted to strip away all of the fancy stuff , which included the color , no special effects, just very observational , just observing and giving the audience a sense of being there. Black and white delivered that better …. we’re dealing with issues of sight and vision and by taking the color out we are in a sense depriving the sighted of an element of their vison. That also plays into that decision.
If there was a message you want the audience to take away from the film, what would it be?
Ian: There’s no sense of us wanting viewers to feel pity for the subject , this is not a documentary made for people to feel guilty , or even to feel relieved that they’re not blind … but we want people to relate to them as blind people, but go beyond their blindness , they’re characters in their own right, with their own lives with their idiosyncrasies, and to also rethink what disability means . We all have disabilities and abilities … Being with blind people for over three years has taught me that we are disabled and we are all abled in different ways and to think about blindness as a different way of being in the world but not as a deficiency.
As the producer of the film, what are your expectations? What is your next project?
Geetha: It’s a very independent production, so we took the independent route taking it to film festivals and I never imagined we would have a theatrical release in the US … so here we are and having these screenings for the Academy members , and we are contending for the Academy Awards. Ian has already gotten a nomination at the British Documentary Awards, so yes it’s been very, very slow ride, but it’s going somewhere because it is not easy to make a documentary of this kind … but we are doing it and we’re reaching somewhere I think. As for the next project, I’m working with Ian on his next documentary. It is in its very early stages, but I’m also a filmmaker so we have a kind of relationship where I produce his documentaries and he produces my fiction. So far it has been short fictions, but now I have a feature fiction at the film bazaar in Goa at the International Film Festival of India, my fiction being inspired by “Algorithms,” it’s called “End Game.” I’ll be directing it and Ian will be the producer.
-Breanna Robinson
