Talking Cinema, Music, and the Pulse of our Times: Ranjan Palit’s A Knock on the Door
Academic couple Hari Chowdhury (Adil Hussain) and Ramona Bose (Amrita Chattopadhyay) are in the middle of a quiet, romantic evening celebrating their wedding anniversary with food, wine, and music, when the light suddenly goes off, and a group of masked strangers barges in. They rampage around the house – Ambedkar’s Annihilation of Caste, Arundhati Roy’s […]
Of Grief and Light: Sabar Bonda, the First Marathi Feature Film at Sundance
Rohan Parashuram Kanawade’s Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) shall be making history as the first Marathi feature to premiere at the Sundance Film Festival’25. His debut feature, it shall also be South Asia’s only feature film competing at the festival. The film was developed under the Venice Biennale College Cinema ‘23 and NFDC Marathi script camp. […]
The Comfort Amid Art: My Time at the Serendipity Arts Festival 2024
From the ind.igenous desk I am a loner. Most of the nice things I do in life, I do all by myself – attending concerts, exhibitions, watching films, plays, staring at a sunset. I’ve grown to become quite skilled at the art of solitude. I was invited to the 9th edition of the Serendipity Arts […]
Reframing Power: Sheba Chhachhi’s Decolonial Vision in Visual Culture
By Sukhmani Basra For over three decades, Sheba Chhachhi has been a transformative force in Indian visual art, challenging entrenched narratives about activism, agency, and the historical roles of Indian women. Currently showcased at the Barbican’s new exhibition, The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975– 1998 (on till January 5, 2025), her work offers a vital […]
A Longing for Home: An Interview with Theja Rio
In a small, idyllic village in Nagaland, two young boys skip Sunday school to explore on their own. Ade (On a Sunday), a delightful short film in the Tenyidie language shot on 16mm that premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam, has lately been making its presence felt at film festivals across the globe. With […]
Love and Loss: In Bhaskar’s Light
By Debmalya Bandyopadhyay It is June, 2015. I am sixteen and I wear a rabbit’s heart. I ride an auto early each Monday morning to arrive at my mathematics tuition before anyone else. Our tutor is pleasantly surprised by my recent prowess in the subject. No one knows this yet, but there is someone in […]
History as Memory: Dibakar Banerjee’s Tees
‘I am being rowed through Paradise in a river of Hell:Exquisite ghost, it is night. The paddle is a heart; it breaks the porcelain waves.It is still night. The paddle is a lotus.I am rowed- as it withers-toward the breeze which is soft asif it had pity on me. If only somehow you could have […]
Camera Indica in the New Millennium
As World Photography Day approaches, we take a look at the shifts in Indian photography over the past decade. By Sourajit Saha Christopher Pinney, in his book The Coming of Photography to India, makes a very interesting statement – ‘If nineteenth-century Indian photography’s paradigmatic location was the Himalayan foothills, in the twentieth-century photography’s preferred location […]
For the Love of Acting: An Interview with Prashansa Sharma
Actor Prashansa Sharma has lately been in the limelight for her powerful performances in two of the most popular shows on Indian OTT in recent times – Mirzapur and Dahaad. In Mirzapur, her character Radhiya is a fly on the wall, but has been much-discussed over the three seasons of the show. Rooted in theatre […]
On Being Misfits: Charachar and the Cinema of Buddhadeb Dasgupta
A bird catcher who loves birds too dearly to keep them caged. Strong, yet gentle hands quietly open the doors of cages, and the birds flutter out into the vast, blue skies – one by one, sometimes in swift motion, and sometimes nudged softly by the very hands that caught them. With every passing day, […]
