What’s common between Parinda and Ardh Satya? Or Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro and Hyderabad Blues, Pardes and 1942: A Love Story? Her name was Renu Saluja. Renu was the creative force behind at least a quarter of all “parallel” movies made in the 80s and 90s. As a point of fact, her roster as a […]
Learn More
Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Anantaram (1987), his fifth film and its three preceding films have a common approach of a biography of an individual. They get deeper and deeper as we move from his second film onwards. While Kodiyettam (1978) follows the carefree Shankaran Kutty attaining maturity, in Elippathayam (1982), Unni is like a rat in a […]
Learn More
In the present landscape of Indian cinematic productions, the ever-growing number of female authors brings a fresh breath of air that comes with interesting stories, powerful female characters, and challenging perspectives on various social, political, and cultural aspects. The great benefit brought about by the digitalization of the Indian film industry, mainly of the processes […]
Learn More
Shyam Benegal: the Affable Auteur “Weave a circle around him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread, For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.” -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘Kubla Khan’ The most endearing aspect of Shyam Benegal as an individual and a director is his unassuming demeanour. He is an […]
Learn More
Girish Kasaravallii I am not making a “perfect” film, I am making an “imperfect” film. To me, cinema is a powerful tool for challenging existing notions. -Girish Kasaravalli True to his stated philosophy and approach to cinema, noted Padmashri Awardee Kannada Cinema auteur Girish Kasaravalli has been chiseling his cinema spotlighting on prevalent socio-political concerns, […]
Learn More
Geeta Dutt ‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease. – John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale In Geeta Dutt’s warbling voice, subdued smile […]
Learn More
Kamal Haasan “The fact that I’ve lived this long is not really an achievement, Time passes; we age… it’s natural. This is why it annoys me when a person watches a movie and tell me that it was ‘time pass’. Would time not have passed if he hadn’t watched the film?” -Kamal Haasan All […]
Learn More
Vivien Leigh — the Scorn that Won the World “Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships, And burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss. Her lips suck forth my soul: see, where it flies! Come, Helen, come, give me my soul again. Here will I dwell, […]
Learn More
This was around 1955. Ritwik Ghatak was in Bombay, sharing his living quarters with Hrishikesh Mukherjee. Producer Shashadhar Mukherjee had him employed at Filmistan Studios, writing stories and scripts for them. Ritwik had just been married to Surama Bhattacharjee. He wrote to his young bride, who was working at a school in the northeastern hill […]
Learn More
Out of the twelve films Richard Attenborough directed in his lifetime, seven were biographical pictures, a genre that has come to be labeled as the ‘biopic’. In a marathon interview given to John Gallagher in the year 1992, Attenborough explains his fixation with the genre: “I’m fascinated by the people who have changed our attitude […]
Learn More