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 […]
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 […]
