Documentary Films - Creating Narratives of Social Change Through Factual Storytelling

Documentary films have become an important channel for audiences to process and decipher information today. Having an inherent power to critically address contemporary issues in a threadbare manner, they have a cornucopia of new insights for tackling different problems plaguing our society. Higher perceptions of reality and factuality positively affect learning and engagement among the public. The genre with its claim to indexicality and veridicality has an important social function of setting the agenda by penetrating public consciousness, which in turn amplifies the sphere of civic discourse on various social issues. Good storytelling in documentary films can ignite powerful emotions and evoke empathy among its audiences. Such an impact facilitates major change in viewpoints and fuels social change. This paper has used the tool of textual analysis to examine two critically acclaimed and pivotal social issue documentaries- ‘Some Stories Around Witches' made by four time national film award winner Lipika Singh Darai and ‘Veil Done' filmed by Juhi Bhatt which won the national film award for the ‘Best Film on Social Issues' in 2018. This will help us decipher the mechanics of factual storytelling, the cinematic devices used to infuse emotions, creating a gripping and thoughtprovoking film.