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, […]
Ishqnama, or Why I Love Wajid Ali Shah
By Soumyadeep Roy I’ve spent the last 7 years researching and learning about 19th century Lucknow and one person in particular, its last artist-King— Abul Mansoor Meerza Muhammed Wajid Ali Shah. It’s longer than any romantic relationship I’ve been in, my friends joke. And that too with a dead person from a dying culture. But […]
Women by The River: A Beloved Portrait by Renoir
By Aliyah Banerjee At times, Renoir holds up a mirror so close to my face that I cannot not look at myself, at Harriet, Melanie, and Valerie on screen. Young girls coming of age- so much spoken about the matter in film, literature, and life. And yet, words get lost in the silent river that […]
Trijya: The Heaviness of Being
By Babli Yadav It is 4.45 pm and the sun has just hit the neighbour’s window. It is glowing, almost as if telling me something private. I wonder if anyone else can see what I do. The descending sun’s reflection on windows and walls between 4.30 to 5 pm is one of my best discoveries. […]
Rowing Across Languages
Ten Bangla poems translated to English, on the occasion of World Translation Day
204B Block B, Lake Town, Kolkata: My Tête-à-Tête with Shanu Lahiri’s Creative Spirit
By Srilagna Majumdar While I’m aware that many people have penned down their emotions regarding the address mentioned in this piece’s title, I still want to do it again, one more time, in my own way, because the aforementioned address never seems to lose its charm. In 2021, just about 21 years old, I was […]
Of Modernity, Civilization, and Identity: Satyajit Ray’s Agantuk
By Anuska Guin Agantuk (The Stranger) is Satyajit Ray’s last film, released in 1991. The year 1991 is significant because it marks the beginning of liberalization reforms in India. The opening up of the Indian economy led to the rise of a ‘new middle class’ in India, as argued by Leela Fernandes. As the film […]
Baksa Badal: Satyajit Ray the Scriptwriter of a Delightful Bangla Rom-Com
By Suchetona Pal For a few years now, I have nurtured a habit of returning to the literary texts from which many of my favourite films have been adapted. Reading such a text invariably leads to attempts at mapping it to the film’s independent interpretation of it. I remember being fascinated when I first watched […]
Preserving Butterflies
Remembering P.K. Nair, the Legendary Film Archivist
Kabhi Door Kabhi Paas: Mrinal Sen’s Short Films
On following Mrinal Sen’s filmography, one notices a change around the 80s. From sharp socio-political commentaries to self-introspection, there is a gradual shift from looking outward to looking inward. With his earlier films, he earns for himself the title of being a ‘political filmmaker’, while his later films situate themselves within the spaces of the […]
