New Delhi: Documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan – who has spent decades tracking the rise of Hindutva nationalism – has been chosen for the Outstanding Achievement Award at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto, Canada, for his body of work, The Telegraph reported. The event will also screen some of his films on Hindutva and majoritarianism.The Hot Docs Festival is the largest international documentary festival in North America and is a qualifying event for documentaries for the Oscars. The event is held annually in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This year, the 29th edition of the festival will run from April 28 to May 8. It will present 226 films hailing from 63 countries, and will feature 63 world and 47 international premieres.The 72-year-old filmmaker is best known for his National Award-winning documentaries Bombay: Our City (1985) on slum-dwellers, In Memory of Friends (1990) on the Punjab insurgency, In the Name of God (1992) that foretold the Babri Masjid demolition, Father, Son and Holy War (1995) on Hindutva, War and Peace (2002) on the 1998 nuclear tests in India and Pakistan, and Jai Bhim Comrade (2011) on the 1997 police firing on Dalits in Mumbai.Patwardhan’s latest film Reason (2018), which is on the history of majoritarianism in India, will be screened at the festival along with three documentaries – Father, Son and Holy War; War and Peace; and A Time to Rise. A Time to Rise is a 1981 documentary on the immigrant farm workers in Canada who try to form a union.Also read: Anand Patwardhan’s ‘Reason’ Is Both Uncomfortable and ReassuringThe Mumbai-based filmmaker told The Telegraph, “An award like this would, in normal times, increase viewership, not just internationally but in India as well. But we live under a regime that takes extraordinary measures to control what people see and what they must not.”He added, “On the one hand the Prime Minister of this country acts like a sales agent for a film like The Kashmir Files and the regime ensures a box-office hit. On the other hand, screenings of even older films of mine that won censor certificates allowing ‘Universal’ viewing are physically attacked by goons. In these circumstances, the Hot Docs award is an affirmation that there are people across the globe who understand the value of films that refuse to be bullied into silence.”Patwardhan’s screenings of his films have often been disrupted by right-wing groups or the Sangh parivar. In August 2013, a group of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activists allegedly thrashed students of the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), where the students had organised a programme to pay homage to social activist Narendra Dabholkar. As part of it, Patwardhan’s documentary film Jai Bhim Comrade was screened at the programme.In December 2014, the ILS Law College in Pune cancelled a screening of Patwardhan’s National Award-winning 1991 documentary Ram Ke Naam at the college festival. Ram Ke Naam is a 1992 documentary about the Vishwa Hindu Parishad’s campaign to demolish the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya.Patwardhan had told Scroll.in that the students organising the screening had cited threats they had received as the reason for the cancellation. The organisers, however, later denied this.He also had to move court several times to have his work shown on Doordarshan, as National Award-winning films are entitled to be.