Movie Murmur

A edit grab from the film 'Double Life' Didn't I mention earlier that the film laboratory person at Mahim talked about the state of affairs at Films Division? Well, that day he said something else too. Their laboratory often processed and bulk printed the ‘News Magazines’ that were to be shown compulsorily in movie theaters; after Films Division supplied it with the negatives of the films. The laboratory person had then whispered into my ears something to this effect, “They would order let's say X number of prints that were to be kept in X number of cans for a pan India release. Now, who knows what would be inside those X number of cans? Tell me... who knows? "   Well, it seems in retrospect, that whisper that day encapsulated in itself the crux of the matter that has been plaguing the organization over the years. Who knows what would be in those cans? Who knows, what are the Films Division films that were being screened at theaters across the country; an...

My association with Films Division first began when my school friends graphically described to me on how Sunil Gavaskar and Gundappa Vishwanth hit boundaries upon boundaries in the 1971 test match against the mighty West Indies team in the Caribbean islands on a newsreel that they saw before the main movie in a local theater, in the early seventies. A couple of days later I did sneak into the movie hall only to savor one of the most significant overseas test cricket victories that the Indian team had  since it started playing cricket Newsreels such as these were produced by Films Division, an organization under the aegis of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India. The exhibition of these newsreels were mandated by law - a practice first initiated in pre-independence India by the British, mainly to promote their war efforts. 'The Information Films of India', was what the unit was called then. After independence, this unit was transformed ...

The Unbearable Being of Lightness from Ram PN on Vimeo . To screen 'The Unbearable Being of Lightness' or any of my other films in your schools, colleges, offices and film clubs please contact HERE

A still from the film The public premier of the film THE UNBEARABLE BEING OF LIGHTNESS was held on 12-11-2016 at the  Kolkata International Film Festival in the  Competition Section for documentary films at Shishir Mancha 2. Click here for the SCHEDULE Link to the Film Festival Site KIFF

The trailer of 'The Unbearable Being of Lightness' - a documentary on a suicide note, a few gazes and a shopping area by Ramchandra PN To screen 'The Unbearable Being of Lightness' or any of my other films in your schools, colleges, offices and film clubs please contact HERE

The Unbearable Being of Lightness A few days back I gave some finishing touches to my new work "The Unbearable Being of Lightness", a documentary on a suicide note, a few gazes and a shopping area. I was putting in the credit titles into it. The last title card always is 'A film by...'. Every time I type this title card I invariably hesitate, giving a pause. This time too, it was no exception. As I deleted the words 'film by' I stared into the blank title card wondering, as always, is this really a film? After all I had not used a 'thin flexible strip of plastic or other material coated with light-sensitive emulsion for exposure in a camera, used to produce photographs or motion pictures' to make this work. I had used a digital camera. I thought of using 'A video by...'. But somehow the images of fungus ridden U-matic magnetic tapes that we used to work on ages ago splashed into my mind. No one uses 'A video by...'....