When the world locked itself away in 2020, the corridors of cinema fell silent. Productions ground to a halt, and filmmakers turned their lenses inward, waiting for normalcy to return. But for one filmmaker, the world had never been more alive with stories waiting to be told. Kuldeep Cariappa’s UNSEEN, a documentary that navigates the fault lines of India’s most invisible communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, is as much a film about survival as it is about the human spirit under duress.
What is striking about Cariappa’s work is not just its thematic resonance but the technical bravery behind it. Few filmmakers dare to tackle the chaos of a global pandemic head-on—fewer still do it with such precision and emotional isntelligence.
“I never set out to make a documentary,” Cariappa admits. The Bangalore-based filmmaker had already made a name for himself through his political documentaries and commercial projects. But when the pandemic descended, his creative focus shifted dramatically. He was drawn, almost magnetically, to stories that were being ignored.
“Initially, I thought of a fiction piece about sex workers struggling to survive in lockdown. But the more I dug into the real world, the more I realized that reality was where the narrative had to live,” he says.
From there, UNSEEN became a project driven not by a script but by the visceral need to reveal the truths of people pushed to the fringes of society—sex workers, industrial laborers, victims of communal violence, and displaced communities.
It’s easy to underestimate the filmmaking feat that UNSEEN represents. Directing a documentary across the expanse of a country as geographically and culturally diverse as India during the most restrictive lockdowns in its history is no small task. Cariappa navigated these logistical nightmares with a mix of patience and invention.
He utilized a network of local filmmakers, whom he directed virtually, to capture on-the-ground footage in Kashmir, Assam, and other regions. “I couldn’t be physically present in many places, so I had to rely on remote teams. It was like flying blind in some ways, but we managed to get the intimacy we were after.”
For the scenes shot in Assam during the Baghjan disaster—a gas blowout that displaced thousands—the stakes couldn’t have been higher. “It was about making sure we didn’t just capture the tragedy but also the resilience,” Kuldeep explains. The visual style of the film emphasizes the scale of devastation, while the narratives give voice to the human cost.
The emotional core of UNSEEN lies in its subjects, whose stories pulsate with the weight of their struggles. Cariappa lets them speak for themselves, often allowing their raw emotions to guide the film’s tone. One of the most haunting scenes comes from a sex worker in Mumbai’s Kamatipura district, who, facing the total collapse of her livelihood, reflects on the double-edged sword of isolation: “We live our lives unseen, but the lockdown made us invisible even to ourselves.”
What makes UNSEEN distinctive in the realm of pandemic cinema is its refusal to simplify these stories into statistics or sobering soundbites. Cariappa’s style is one of careful listening, allowing his subjects to shape the narrative through their words, their silence, and their pain. In doing so, he avoids the pitfalls of sensationalism, grounding his film in the lived realities of people whose stories were already being written out of the pandemic narrative.
Though its heart beats in India, UNSEEN is not bound by national borders. The pandemic has unified the world in loss, and the stories it captures are universal. The film has resonated far beyond its domestic audience, winning praise from international festivals for its emotional depth and relevance.
For Cariappa, though, the accolades are secondary. “I made UNSEEN because it needed to be made, not for awards. But if these stories can reach a wider audience because of that recognition, then it’s worth it.”
As UNSEEN gears up for its wider release, there is little doubt that Cariappa’s career is on an upward trajectory. Yet, he remains committed to telling stories that are often overlooked, whether through his upcoming Kannada feature films or future documentaries. He insists, “Cinema is how I connect with the world, but it’s also how I listen to it.”
With UNSEEN, Kuldeep Cariappa doesn’t just tell stories—he hands the mic to those who’ve long been denied one, creating a documentary that will leave audiences questioning the lines between visibility and invisibility in the societies we navigate.
