A look at Ere Gowda’s directorial debut, Balekempa (The Bangle Seller), a Kannada film that received the FIPRESI Jury Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam for its “subtle and delightful portrayal of a universal theme against the backdrop of a...
We are a family, and the loyalty of the family must come before anything and everyone else. For if we honour that commitment, we will never be vanquished – but if we falter in that loyalty we will all be condemned. –Mario Puzo, The Family If a body catch...
The Malayalam filmmaker Don Palathara’s first three films – Shavam: The Corpse (2015), Vith: Seed (2017) and 1956, Travancore (2019) – are marked by the Syrian Catholic setting and the style of slow cinema movement in which they’re shot. Shavam is about a sudden death...
Chicks don’t do chick flicks. They do whatever flick interests them, whatever subjects. – Betty Thomas, actress, director & producer. Chick flick is not a term used to praise a movie. Nobody says ‘it’s a great chick flick.’ It’s a way of being derisive. –...
Society Man is a political animal. So reflected Aristotle. He went a step further to see politics and culture as by-products of nature. Man is given speech and moral reason as natural, inborn, gifts. So, any further device, or design, such as politics, must be...
When Adoor Gopalakrishnan, one of the internationally acclaimed Indian filmmakers, launched his first feature film Swayamvaram five decades ago, it was after many years of sustained effort. After passing out of FTII, Pune in 1965, he found it difficult to get a...
We have had countless guests in Godiwala Bungalow but the memory of one stands out above the rest. Ritwik Ghatak Sometime in the early ’70s a Bengali gentleman landed up unannounced at home. He looked like he had seen better days. His entire demeanour was one of...
Every Bombayite of our generation had heard of Protima Gupta. She was the ultimate enfant terrible. People spoke in hushed whispers about her streaking through Samovar restaurant. For those who came in late streaking was big in the ’70s in the west. It meant...
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...
Mahishasur Marddini “So many years past being raped, I tell myself what happened is ‘in the past.’ This is only partly true. In too many ways, the past is still with me. The past is written on my body. I carry it every single day. The past sometimes feels...
