Metacritic reviews

Writing With Fire, directed by Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas, tags along with these remarkable women as they go about their work. Viewers sit in on editorial meetings and training sessions, and go out in the field...It’s well worth seeking out.

Writing with Fire accomplishes what any good documentary should—it allows the viewer a visit a world that they might never even have known to exist.

Thomas and Ghosh have found their angle, and it’s a powerful one.

At a time when the profession faces increasing dangers in India, the film’s faith in the powers of grassroots journalism is nothing short of galvanizing.

Armed with eagle-eyed filmmakers and compelling subjects, the film deftly blends the (inextricably linked) personal and professional sides of the journalists’ work, offering up a wide-ranging look at a vital outlet with so many stories to tell.

Directed by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, the documentary is best at offering a peek into the lives of Khabar Lahariya’s scrappy, self-made women, who are well aware that they are claiming for themselves a profession largely occupied by upper-class men.

Whether the pen is mightier than the sword may be up for debate, but as this engaging and hopeful documentary by Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh shows, words have the power to change things when wielded carefully.

Writing with Fire is a powerful piece of work, although it moves at a mostly slow and steady pace.

Concise and crucial, Writing with Fire adeptly and urgently conveys the necessity of journalism—especially in places that actively try to suppress its reach.

Writing With Fire is at its best when emphasizing the barriers these women have to overcome daily to fulfill their desires to be journalists, and showcasing the importance of Khabar Lahariya’s work where corruption runs amok.