The Mountains and the Mist
Every time I’m asked to name my favourite Satyajit Ray film, I do not know how to respond. Earlier, I used to stare stupidly for a while and then blurt out a name which, for no apparent reason, came first to my mind. Once you decide on a favourite, it is thereon easy to explain […]
Cinema for Change: Shyam Benegal’s Rural Trilogy
‘Through my films I can say, “Here is the world, and here are the possibilities we have,”’ – perhaps it is the existence of these possibilities that made Shyam Benegal the bearer of the winds of change in Indian cinema. There were filmmakers before him working independent of mainstream cinema, experimenting with different styles of […]
The Muslim Narrative in Hindi Cinema: 20 Picks by Shazia Iqbal
It is strange that in a country whose people are majorly known to walk, talk and sleep Bollywood, the portrayal of its on-screen characters from a particular religion has always been slightly warped. In an industry that churns out hundreds of films every year, only a handful of them accommodates the Muslim narrative with honesty […]
Musings, Ghungroos, and Kathak on Screen
By Aliyah Banerjee Wrapping Ma’s dupattas around my head, slipping into the cotton ghagra my grandmother sewed for me, and dancing along to Tagore’s Phule-Phule defined my early years and intertwined dance with the usual memories of a child growing up. My love for Indian music could not help but blossom as I spent evening […]
On Mothers and Daughters
Exploration of this powerful relationship through two films by Rituparno Ghosh
My Amrita
How a woman found herself in a new land through the writings of Amrita Pritam
Chitrangada’s Favourites in Indian Cinema
It is difficult to pick favourites from an ocean of treasures, but she has done it for you – actress Chitrangada Satarupa has listed down twelve of her favourite Indian films of all time, which have left the strongest impact on her. Year: 1963 Director: Satyajit Ray Language: Bengali ‘I might be guilty of including […]
College Fests in the Time of COVID
With 2020 throwing up an array of hardships at people from all walks of life, the arts and entertainment industry has been especially affected, with theatres shutting down, concerts becoming an impossibility, or a chunk of supporting artists finding themselves out of a job, overnight. For the ones who’ve been privileged enough to sit at […]
Absence
A young woman doesn’t return home for a night. A retired professor casually leaves his home one evening but never returns. The young servant boy of a middle-class Kolkata household is found dead one morning. Delay, disappearance, death – three films made over almost a decade, but connected through their central idea, form Mrinal Sen’s […]
The World of Ramjan Ostagar: The Common Man of Old Calcutta
Guest Author: Upayan Chatterjee The World of Ramjan Ostagar: The Common Man of Old Calcutta is a chapter written by Sumanta Banerjee from the book ‘Calcutta: The Living City’ (Oxford University Press), dedicated to the anonymity of Calcutta’s common man in the 19th century. The author speaks of how all the history of the period […]
