Visually-Challenged Chess Players: Help Showcase Special Documentary to World Audience

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2013

Hi everyone, 

You must have read the Chess Blog posts on 'Algorithms' - the documentary by Ian McDonald on blind chess players in India:

Ian McDonald's Unique Chess Documentary - World of Blind Chess in India
Visually Challenged Chess Players - Ian McDonald Documentary on Indian Chess Players

The documentary was praised in India and surely, it deserves a bigger international platform. The director and his team are now looking to secure an international premiere at a top film festival outside India. It had its World Premiere at the International Film Festival of India in Nov 2012. It was also a Film Bazaar Recommended (FBR) film at the industry event parallel to IFFI and screeners have been taken by visiting festivals. 

For this, the film needs to be regraded. The original picture grading was not done to a big screen projector. But this is expensive. Also, the teams wants to take the desired high quality outputs (HD CAM, DCP etc), which again are very expensive. McDonald's team has little time to raise funds. They have now decided to go down the crowd-funding route with a Kickstarter campaign. The target is £10,000 in 45 days. If they fail to reach the target they get nothing! 

Would you like to support this very special chess documentary? Here is the Kickstarter Campaign link for 'Algorithms'. 

Crowd funding a project through Kickstarter is slowly becoming the most viable way for documentary filmmakers and now one-third of films that come to festivals are funded this way. In fact, the Oscar award for short documentary went to a Kickstarter film this year!



From Alexandra Kosteniuk's
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Ian McDonald's Unique Chess Documentary - World of Blind Chess in India

Chess blog for latest chess news and chess trivia (c) Alexandra Kosteniuk, 2012

Hi everyone,

We have a nice chess video from an excellent film: Algorithms. You might remember that we had a small post on the film way back in August: Visually Challenged Chess Players - Ian McDonald Documentary on Indian Chess Players. We have more details now:

Ian McDonald

Ian McDonald is a sports sociologist and documentary filmmaker. Having always used the camera to support his research on sport and physical culture in UK and India, Ian’s move to documentary filmmaking, benefits from a seemingly effortless ‘way of seeing’ that has resulted in documentaries with a difference on art and sport, especially of the ‘sporting outsider’- the one who is seen as ‘different’ by a ‘normal’ society. His documentaries have been screened at film festivals, conferences and campaign meetings around the world. Ian is based at the University of Brighton, UK.

ALGORITHMSIndia | 2012 | HDV | B&W | 109 mins
English, Hindi, Tamil, Odiya with English subtitles

In India, a group of boys dream of becoming Chess Masters, driven by a man with a vision. But this is no ordinary chess and these are no ordinary players. Algorithms is a documentary on the thriving but little known world of Blind Chess in India.

Filmed over three years, Algorithms travels with three talented boys and a totally blind player turned pioneer to competitive national and world championships and visits them in their home milieu where they reveal their struggles, anxieties and hopes.

Going beyond sight and story, this observational sport docu with a difference moves through the algorithms of the blind chess world challenging the sighted of what it means to see. It allows for the tactile and thoughtful journey that explores foresight, sight and vision to continue long after the moving image ends.




Alexandra Kosteniuk's
www.chessblog.com
Also see her personal blog at
www.chessqueen.com
Don't miss Chess Queen™ 
YouTube Channel