Lipika Singh Darai
Lipika Singh Darai is an Indian filmmaker, editor and sound recordist from Odisha. Lipika has received four National Film Awards for direction, sound recording, and narration in the non-feature section. Her documentary Night and Fear premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam in Ammodo Tiger Short competition. She is developing her debut fiction feature Birdwoman which has received the 2023. She is one of the ten creative talents in BAFTA .
Early life and education
Darai was born in Damasahi, Odisha, India to both parents from the Ho indigenous community. She is based in Bhubaneswar.Darai graduated from Film and Television Institute of India in 2010, specialising in sound recording and design.
Career
Recording
Darai started her career as a sound recordist for a Hindi short film Gaarud, receiving the 57th National Film Awards for audiography in 2010 in the non-fiction category when she was a student at FTII.Direction
In 2012, Darai directed her debut film Eka Gacha Eka Maṇisha Eka Samudra '' in Odia. In 2014, she made film essay Kankee O Saapo which won the National Film Awards in the narration / voice-over category. In 2015, she directed ', produced by Public Service Broadcasting Trust, a film about the humanitarian crisis surrounding the cases of witch-hunts in Odisha, India. Her short fiction film ', produced by LXL Ideas, made for schools across India, focuses on the struggle to protect a dying waterfall and received the National Award for Best Educational Film. In 2021, she directed . This Odia film depicts different styles of puppetry of Odisha highlighting the work of master rod-puppeteer Maguni Charan Kuanr, Rabana Chhaya / Shadow puppeteers of Odash village , Gouranga Charan Dash, Sakhi Kandhei Nacha puppeteers Abhay Singh, Parameshwar Singh, Sridhar Singh, Kedar Singh and Team, as well as the string puppeteers of Ganjam District, including Chaitanya Behera and his team. The film also tries to look at these puppeteers' art forms in the context of the caste system in India. In 2023, she made her second film essay called Raati o Bhaya '' produced by writer/producer .Art and Research Projects
Lipika assisted Indraneel Lahiri in a year long Research Project on Puppetry of Odisha. The research work was conducted with a fellowship underLipika was selected among various Artists across India for a project called Listening to the city under Programme by the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies's Sarai Project.
Lipika participated in in 2017as a filmmaker and Visual Artist with her film essay Dragonfly and Snake.
Lipika authored the essay "Making Films from and about the Margins" in, published by, in 2024, a book that explores various forms of resistance in contemporary Indian documentary cinema.