Movie Murmur

  Poster for LOHIT DIARY Duration: 76 Minutes Year: 2015 Camera: Narayanan Venkataraman Sound: Sanotsh Kumar Producers: Films Division, India Editing, Direction & Executive Producer: Ramchandra PN   Synopsis: Amidst wide spread opium cultivation in the Lohit River valley in Eastern Arunachal Pradesh, North-East India, Basamlu Kisikro engages opium growers into shifting to green tea, Tewa Manpoong supports fellow addicts into rehabilitation and Uncle Moosa spreads the j oy of reading amongst children. Uncle Moosa (right) Tewa Manpoong (Right) Basamlu Kisikro Trailer The posters of the film and the stills can be reproduced as it is elsewhere.   If you are looking to arrange a screening for your club / college / house / office please click HERE

The Bankrupts (Haal-e-Kangaal) V N Lakshminarayana, Critic, Mysore It was a fruitful experience to watch 'The Bankrupts' at Mysuru and again In Bengaluru. 'The Bankrupts' is a high profile movie packed with the dialectics of form and content, image and sound, verbal and the nonverbal expression, truth and falsehood, bluff and imagination, gender and human relationships, capital and cinematic art- and finally the ideology in the era of postmodernism that is embedded in the very fabric of social life of the people at large. An undercurrent of sadness born out of systemic deprivation of existential opportunities to realize one's talents adds to the absurdity of the entangled life situation the two artiste friends are placed in, gives the movie a tint of comedy too. The minimalistic approach adopted in creating the entire movie is not only novel but also path breaking in the production of Indian films. Rajiv Kumar, Film maker, Delhi 'Th...

A few days back, late at about ten in the night, I receive a missed call from a valued colleague. I call back after a while. Me: "You had called...?"  Colleague: "Yes.. this is not relating to work, but something else... Can we talk now?" Me: "Sure..." Colleague: "Ram, would you be interested in being a part of the Jury to the Panorama...?" Me: (Not sure) "Meaning...?" Colleague: "You know, there is a Jury that decides the films that are shown in the Panorama section... in the film festival in Goa..." Me: "Oh, the pre-selection of the films for the Panorama Section...?" Colleague: "Yes, the pre-selection committee... would you be interested?" I am not sure on what capacity he is offering me this post. I assume that the powers that be might have asked him to make his own pre-selection. Me: "Hmmm... well... when does this happen...?" Colleague: "It happens in Nov...

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 pr...

Sometime in January, 2013, Jayashree Rajagopalan got in touch with me regarding an article that she was writing on Children's films in India. She had picked up four films for a detailed analysis - Santosh Sivan’s Tahaan (2008), Jayashree Kanal and A. S. Kanal’s Chota Sipahi [Little Soldier] (2005, in Hindi, Vinod Ganatra's Harun-Arun (2009) and my Putaani Party (2009).    Here is the link to the entire article by Jayashree Rajagopalan... Heal the World, Make It a Better Place: Social and Individual Hope in Indian Children’s Cinema  I am pasting the relevant portion of what she has written about Putaani Party .....   By involving children in politics, Ramchandra P. N.’s Putaani Party presents a completely different kind of idealism that deals with substance abuse at the rural household level and covers the larger argument of a child’s ability to reason with adults. Ramchandra P. N. reveals that his child protagonists “have discussions and dialogues thr...

A 'Work in Progress' version of 'The Bankrupts' (Haal-E-Kangaal) was screened at the Manipal International Film Festival on the 20th April, 2014. The film was not colour corrected, the sound was not mixed. The Film Festival was jointly conducted by the Manipal Institute of Communication and the Udupi Chirta Samaj.  As a part of the communication course, the students have to conduct an event, a film festival, in this university. This is the third time that the Manipal Institute of Communication is conducting a Film Festival; last year they had celebrated 100 years of Indian cinema; where they had also screened my 93 minute documentary on theater personality BV Karanth called  'BV Kranth: Baba'. A 118 minute version of 'The Bankrupts' (Haal-E-Kangaal) was screened for the second year direction students at the Film & TV Institute of India in Poona some time back this year. After an interaction with the audience, I did go back to the drawing b...

The Fish and the Sea

This is a fake trailer (3.35 mins) is made by two filmmakers Tripurari Gupta and Lokesh Sharma; for a film called THE BANKRUPTS (HAAL-E-KANGAAL), in which they have themselves acted. Details of the film 118 minutes Hindi / EST / India. Cast: Niraj Sah, Hemant Mahaur Associate Director: Suresh Gujar Sound: Santosh Kumar DOP: Narayanan Venkataraman Writer, Director, Editor: Ramchandra PN If you are looking to arrange a screening for your club / college / house / office please click HERE

Teaser of my latest fiction feature film 'The Bankrupts' (Haal-E-Kangaal) Production details: 118 Minutes / Hindi / India / 2013 / English Subtitles Synopsis: Two filmmakers meet after a gap of fifteen years but struggle to shred away their uncomfortable common past. Credits: Cast: Niraj Sah, Hemant Mahaur Associate Director: Suresh Gujar Hindi Dialogues: Niraj Sah Producer: Sushma PN Location Sound: Santosh Kumar Cameraman: Narayanan Venkatramanan Story, Screenplay, Direction: Ramchandra PN If you are looking to arrange a screening for your club / college / house / office please click HERE

  The schedule at the 'Manipal Film Festival', 2013 The subject matters of many of my films are often based in the state of Karnataka in South India. I should admit that there is an ulterior motive here. The idea was that it would enable me to squeeze in a quick trip to Udupi, the town in which I grew up, to visit my parents who were staying alone. In the 1990s I was extensively involved in the non fiction tele-serial ‘Surabhi’, and for quite a while although based in Mumbai, I was the ‘Karnataka man’ in the organization. Anything that was to be done in that state, and I was the chosen one. It was my right, so to say. I have been in Mumbai for over twenty two years and all these years I always did feel the need to maintain this connection. With both my parents having expired in quick secession a couple of years back, it did occur to me on several occasions as to how long this connection would last. I have been looking at subjects from other parts of the country f...

Shankarghatta - a view from the university My lectures at the Mass Communication Department at the Kuvempu University fell on the City Municipality Elections voting day in Karnataka. The University itself is named after Late K.V. Putappa (Kuvempu) considered as one of the fathers of Modern Kannada literature and is situated at Shankargatta, a small town on the outskirts of a reserved forest area that is around 45 minutes drive away from the city of Shimogga. Well, Shimogga is Mr. B. S. Yeddyurappa's constituency and Yeddyurappa's stories on corruption  cases are well known. The land that he owns right on the Shimogga-Shankarghatta road along with a 'few lkilometer long' compound wall that is attached to it forms a prominent part in the 'things to see' list and that the housing rent at Shimogga doubled to Rs. 3,000/- for a three boredom house as soon as Mr. Yeddyurappa became the Chief Minister of the State of Karnataka forms a prominent part in the 'th...