Movie Murmur

Niraj Sah and Hemant Mahaur in 'Haal e Kangaal' (The Bankrupts) It was started off when friend Shrikant Prabhu goaded me to send a dvd copy of the film to Vidyarthi Chatterjee, a no-nonsense film critic from Kolkata. When I sent it to him, it was Durga pooja time.  After a couple of days when he did not receive my calls, I was worried. The meaning making machine that my mind is, thought that maybe the senior critic has not liked the film.  And then the next day came the call, that lasted all of forty seven minutes. He had not heard the phone ring as the Durga Pooja celebrations around his house was at its peak. After cursing the noise levels, he spoke about my film, Haal e Kangaal (The Bankrupts), the one that I had sent it to him.  During the course of the conversation he said among other things, "The film is unusual, perky, interesting, experimental and smartly made in a positive sense. There are a few films like this, and you should continue to

Niraj Sah in GOTALA Nostalgia sucks, but for some strange reason, I have cut one frame of the negative film of an unused take of my diploma film that I had done at the Film and TV Institute of India (FTII) in 1990 and I have preserved it over the years. A diploma film is the final exercise that any student does at FTII.    My film's name was GOTALA (The Mess) and since it was in black and white, it was 30 minutes in length. The ones who choose color then, had to go only up to 20 minutes. Again for some strange reason, Mathi Azhagan the cameraman who shot my diploma film had preserved a copy of the script of GOTALA for all these years. Mathi was a faculty in the Cinematography Department at FTII when I was studying. He had just graduated from the State film school in Chennai and he had already shot my song exercise. In 2009, I had been to the LV Prasad Film Institute to conduct a documentary film workshop. Mathi was a faculty here. I had lunch at his house, after whic

Click here for 'Indian Cinema - Form and Content' 'Indian Cinema - Form and Content' is an essay I had written twenty six years back, while I was studying at the Film and TV Institute of India. This exercise was a part of our course, where we had to write something about Sociology of Indian Cinema.  Anil Zankar was my supervisor on this one. I remember while in my third year he asked me if he could publish parts of this in a Marathi language book that he was editing on Indian Cinema.   I found this in the attic of our house in Udupi, my home town. The version uploaded in the one that has been typed, if I remember well, by the tutorial section at the FTII. I have scanned it as I have found it - so it has some typo errors, some spelling errors and the likes. I am now amused by certain assumptions that I have made, but the essay makes a broad point that Indian films over the years have not come out of the mythological framework  that has been thrust up

On the 14th of July, 2015, the first thing in the morning, I found myself staring at a Times of India report that stated that The Government of India spends Rs. 12,00,000 per student per year at the Film and TV Institute of India or The FTII. I assume that the figure relates to the year 2011, as the report also mentions that the recovery from the students, as academic fees, is about 11% for the year 2011. There were 350 students... so 350 into 12,00,000 is equal to... wait let me check with the calculator.. is equal to.. 42 and seven zeros... is it eight... no, seven...   42 and seven zeros which is Rs 42,00,00,000. In words, forty two crores for the Film Institute, I presume, for the year 2011. It is more than what the Government spends on students of Engineering, Management and Medicine, screamed the news item. Is it? One part of me felt elated as it boosts ones ego to know that at some point of time in your life, your worth was more than that of other wannabe profes

I was in Pune last week to conduct a six days short film making workshop for the TV direction students at my Alma Mater, The Film and TV Institute of India. Ravi Dawala, who was facilitating the workshop, and I interacted a lot during this period. We discussed about a host of topics which included amongst other things - the Big Bang theory, Stephen Hawking, the grand design, atoms etc… We also dealt with the question of making independent self funded films - like the one I am presently working on called Haal-e-Kangaal' (The Bankrupts) and the difficulty of finding an audience for such films, when we are not going through the mainstream distribution system. All of a sudden Ravi asked me a question, ‘Why are you making the film that you are making?' For a second I was speechless. Why was I making films at all? And then I said, ‘I have made the films that I have made because I have said that I would make them. Now, after having said so, if I had not made those those films,

A friend of mine sent me a sms the other day, to ask if we could meet at four in the afternoon at Infinity. Around two, I boarded an auto to Adarsh Nagar. Normally, if I asked eight autos, the ninth one would give me a boarding pass. But this auto driver was special, he was just the second! As we passed the flyover that is being constructed on the S.V. Road that would head right on top of the Western railway tracks and go into Jogeshwari East, I found myself saying, ‘If this is completed, any and every auto from east would come to West and visa verse’. The auto driver saw the half constructed flyover, but choose to keep mum. Maybe he was not interested. ‘Do you know how long will it take for the flyover to get completed?’ I persisted. ‘Don’t know sir… But there is a lot of money in this flyover business’ he replied. ‘Ah… so he does talk...’ I thought. And then the words began to flow, ‘Sir, they keep constructing these flyovers where ever they get space. And when they don’t get the spa

I am not sure why have I preserved this for twenty two years. I am not sure why have I uploaded this on my blog, now. I am also not sure how long I am going to preserve this.

Certificate of Participation - Course Director Satish Bahadur I first came in contact with Prof. Satish Bahadur way back in 1983 during a film appreciation course that Magsaysay award winner K.V. Subanna had arranged with the collaboration from The Film & TV Institute of India and The National Film Archives of India in Heggodu, a small village near Sagar, Central Karnataka. With his analysis of films he had then opened up a whole new world for me and I am sure for a lot of others who had attended the various film appreciation courses that he relentlessly conducted all over India. He tought Film Appreciation in the film Institute. By the time I joined the Institute in 1987, he had retired. But by then I had attended many of his film appreciation courses in Karnataka. His passion for cinema was very infectious. An entire generation of film makers and film buffs is indebted to him. To sir, with love... Satish Bahadur - a signature in film appreciation