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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
Love, Lost: Revisiting Basu Bhattacharya’s Marriage Trilogy
The 70s and the 80s were a vibrant time for Hindi cinema, with Bollywood churning out action-and-adventure-packed blockbusters of glitz and glamour with tales of characters who were very distinctly in the black or the white, the growth of the parallel cinema movement in sync with the cinema of other Indian languages like Bengali or […]
In the Twilight of the Mind: Revisiting G. Aravindan’s Pokkuveyil
‘Somewhere within your loving look I sense,Without the least intention to deceive,Without suspicion, without evidence,Somewhere within your heart the heart to leave.’ ‘Interpretation’, Vikram Seth A lot of who we are is shaped by the people around us. We become friends, care, and love – and each of these social acts builds us; even in […]
A Night of Memories
‘Aadate bhi ajeeb hoti hai saans lena bhi kaisi aadat hai jiye jaana bhi kya rivayat hai jiye jaate hai, jiye jaate hai aadate bhi ajeeb hoti hai’ (Aadat/ Maya’s nazm – Gulzar) A tale of memories, separation, and love that becomes difficult to separate from habit. A poet went behind the lens, translated his […]
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 […]
On Mothers and Daughters
Exploration of this powerful relationship through two films by Rituparno Ghosh
