There are film directors who create film stars and then there are film directors who become stars themselves. Since cinema started as a means of business, stars and star film directors have both co existed. A star could not survive without a good film director but a star film director could thrive without stars. Each […]
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Cinema has come a long way from a time when long dialogues struck gold at the box-office and cemented a struggling protagonist’s position as a dependable hero to a time when it is cool to be conversational. Alongside, the big screen has ceded much of its audience to the small screen. Clearly, it is not […]
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A case study of the Toulouse Indian Film Festival Cinema is an important medium, and is highly responsible worldwide in constructing otherness.[1] Film industries, since time immemorial, have been aware of this power that it holds, and several papers on this aspect using Hollywood as an example are available.[2] This present study is a result […]
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[note note_color=”#f79125″ text_color=”#151113″ radius=”3″]The author’s film Andar Kahini has received innumerable awards at a variety of international film festivals, and is now set to release in West Bengal cinema halls. If you would like to be a part of it, check out https://www.wishberry.in/campaign/andarkahini-self-exile[/note] The cinema market of Kolkata/West Bengal has primarily been dominated by […]
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Art cinema in India began as a movement partly in order to intervene in social injustices by propagating the right attitudes among the public, although popular cinema had also done it much earlier. Dalits and caste discrimination have frequently been the subjects in Indian cinema from Achhut Kanya (1936) to Sairat (2016) and the general […]
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Our primary research on French spectators of Indian films was conducted nearly a decade ago: the ideal age for a first assessment. At present, although reception studies have begun taking hold in France, there are very few publications for the subject. Firstly, working on the audience-level reception is still not fashionable, and secondly, it is […]
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Tumbbad is certainly an unusual film, an atmospheric fantasy thriller that makes one sit up and take notice although most of its success is in its art department. It has been described as ‘horror’ but is perhaps closer to a fairy tale for adults, revolving around invented myths. There have been other films from the […]
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I wrote my first film review in 1968 in the leftist political weekly Century (founded by VK Krishna Menon) while I was in college. Since then I have reviewed films on and off in various newspapers and magazines. In spite of spending over 5 decades in films and other media I am still hesitant to […]
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Among the various characteristics of Hindi popular cinema noted by film scholars and theorists, one that is of importance is that it is indifferent to the attractions of suspense and surprise and that it favours the familiar rather than novelty. How things will happen is more important than what will happen (1), which will be […]
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Stories narrated in a dramatic manner attract and engage the masses, especially those from the lower strata whose daily lives are filled with struggle. ‘Masala,’ ‘escapist fare’ offers them nostalgia, inspiration, strength and hope. For, the cinema crafted for them is kinder than their unchanging reality. This causal relationship between income class and preference for […]
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