Weighed in by the baggage of Bollywood and chasing the chimera of star power to pull audiences to international film festival seems to have taken the sheen off IFFI, & Goa as a film destination is losing its ground. “Being at a film festival reminds me of the power of film. The power that […]
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In the Indian subcontinent, the tradition of film festivals goes back to 1952, when the first International Film Festival of India (IFFI) took place, in Mumbai. It gave birth to a new league of Indian filmmakers, such as the Bengali trio Satyajit Ray, Ritwik Ghatak and Mrinal Sen, who would revolutionize Indian cinema, in the […]
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Women centric films, in the garb of female empowerment, have become the new normal in Bollywood lately. Focusing on issues that women negotiate in today’s times, these films seek to provide a new ideological template by which they seek audiences’ indulgence in the dramaturgy they unspool through their women protagonists. Taking incidents from real life, […]
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Since 2004, cinema audiences from other parts of the country have started converging to the State of Goa at least once a year to witness international cinema. In the process some effort has been made to rediscover if Goa ever had a tradition of films. Before cinema came to make any inroads in this small […]
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Walking down the roads of Calcutta very many years ago, a college youth remarked to his friend, “If I can make an Assamese cinema I would attain salvation.” Thus began the history of Assamese cinema. The incident happened at the beginning of the second decade of the last century. The author of these words, and […]
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I know that you are no more. But I am, alive for you Believe me. When the seventh seal is opened I will use my camera as my gun and I am sure the echo of the sound will reverberate in your bones, and feed back to me for my inspiration. – John Abraham about […]
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Gantumoote, fallaciousness of the (fe)male gaze Films are the primary source of entertainment for Indians and the cultural constructs created by them strongly influence the thinking of men, women, and most importantly, the new generation.” -Cinema & Society: Shaping our Worldview: Beyond the Lens Investigation on the Impact of Gender Representation in Indian Films: Geena […]
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Manipur, on the easternmost part of India, bordering with Mynmar (Burma) is a small state having rich cultural heritage and charming landscape; its people are endowed with inborn talents in dance, drama and music; it has a thousand year old history with uniqueness of its own kind. Manipur had the experience of viewing peep show […]
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August 1 this year saw journalist Ravish Kumar being awarded the 2019 Ramon Magsaysay Award—the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize—for “harnessing journalism to give voice to the voiceless.” That is the ideal with which I had joined journalism, this very month of 1978. More than 40 monsoons have gone by since I had crossed […]
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Being an effective mass medium, cinema has for long been manipulated for the celebration of national pride and for the recognition of they who demonstrate the highest form of sacrifice and valour. The ‘soldier theme’ has been a favorite of quite a few popular Hindi filmmakers from JP Dutta to Anil Sharma. Subhash Ghai’s Karma […]
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