Winds From The East

Japanese New Wave

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 19:10:00 +0000

TOKYO IS DREAMING

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:19:00 +0000

13 BCD

13 Basement

Hauz Khas Village

New Delhi

13 BCD

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 19:27:00 +0000

13 BCD to launch on Feburary 1st 2012

1st Gallery dedicated to Cinema in India

Criticism+Collaboration+Curating

Cinephilia In India

Kicks-Off

@ 13 BCD

Hauz Khas Village

New Delhi

The Grange Prize

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 18:25:00 +0000

Gauri Gill, Nandini Valli, Elaine Stocki, Althea Thauberger, two each from India and Canada shortlisted for Canada's largest cast prize for photography. Check out their work and particpate in the Open Online Voting.

Cast Online Vote:

http://thegrangeprize.com/vote-2011

Visit the Facebook Page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Grange-Prize-India/254943217871078

Pic Copyright:-

Cinephilia&Beyond

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 08:29:00 +0000

Cine Darbaar in association with the Japan Foundation, Iran Culture House, Indian Auteur and Sri Aurobindo Center for arts and culture, is organizing a 3 day programme titled Cinephilia and Beyond, to be held on the 22^nd, 23^rd and 24^th July, 2011. Cinephilia and Beyond is an independent programme for the young Cinephiles, to enrich them with innovative sessions, film screenings and interactive workshops.

The ceremony will be inaugurated by eminent film maker Mr. Buddhadeb Dasgupta, along with a special screening of his latest film Janala (The Window). The inauguration will be preceded by a key note address on Buddhadeb Dasgupta and his films by Mr. Sandeep Marwah, MD, Marwah Studios, along with the opening of an exhibition on visual story telling from Iran, which will be shown on all 3 days. Buddhadeb Dasgupta has won the Golden Bear award at the Berlin International Film Festival and The Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival and will be conducting an exclusive Master class for the young Cinephiles on 23^rd July.

Also invited to the programme, is renowned maverick cinematographer, Mr. Sunny Joseph, to take a Master class on the basics of cinematography on 24^th July. He has been the cinematographer for directors like Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shaji N Karun, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, and has won the National Award and the Kerala state award. The programme will also have a special session on film history: a journey with Japanese cinema.

Apart from the master classes, Cine Darbaar will also be organizing workshops on Film Criticism, to be taken by Mr. Kaushik Bhowmik, Senior Vice President of Osian Film Festival and a specialized workshop on Film Curating, its research and methodologies, by Ms Ananya Parekh, who has completed her PHD in cinema studies. The workshops will encourage the participants to come up with Visual essays, video essays and reviews to critique films while developing a catalogue essay which will carry curatorial notes to programme a festival. This will further be launched on the website of Cine Darbaar as a virtual exhibition. All students will also be presented with certificates.

Apart from all the workshops mentioned above, the programme will comprise of a film festival titled, Family Resemblances, which will showcase Asian films based on family stories. Prominent films like About Elly, Late Autumn, Kabei: Our Mother, Kaalpurush etc. will be a part of this festival. Cine Darbaar will also include a small reference station for Cinephilies to read on cinema and gain a complete experience to cherish cinema from this programme. There will also be a TV installation screening FIVE, a film by Abbas Kiarostami, dedicated to the Japanese master, Yasijuro Ozu.

The entry to the festival and workshops are free. Registration is required for taking part in the workshop: WEBVITY.COM/_sites/temp/Registration_form.doc

for more. www.indianauteur.com

Favourite Songs of 2010

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 19:06:00 +0000

(In No Particular Order)

1) Carbiou- Found Out

2) Sharon Van Etten

3) Mirrors- Hide and Seek

4) Peter Broderick- Sideline

5) Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti: Round and Round/ Menopause Man

6) Hichkas- Yeh Rooze Khoob Miad

7) Arcade Fire - "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)

8) Wild Nothing- Summer Holidays

9) saito kazuyoshi- gekiteki na syunkan

(fav discovery of the year)

10) Efterklang-Full Moon

11) Girls- Carloina/Heartbreaker

12) Beach House- Zebra

Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:50:00 +0000

IA author Manjari Kaul on the latest film of Ashutosh Gowarikar,

Film theorist, Andre Bazin, in his essay, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image” notes that if cinema was ‘put under psychoanalysis, the practice of embalming the dead might turn out to be a fundamental factor in [its] creation’. Cinema’s preoccupation with history, the spirit and achievements of a particular age, its heroes and its villains, the glory and shame are never a pointer simply to an era gone by but also to a continuum that the filmmakers wish to evoke between the past and the present. The historical film in Hindi cinema has been a genre devoid of imagination for it seems that the only times in the country’s past that seem to get evoked time and again are- the vibrancy of the Mughal era, the heroic freedom struggle and the holocaust of the partition of the Indian subcontinent. Ashutosh Gowarikar has, over the years, marked out the Historical as his preferred territory. He has sung his eulogy to Mughal India in Jodhaa Akbar (2008) and expressed his patriotic fervor in Lagaan (2001). READ MORE

NFAI and Film Preservation

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 10:35:00 +0000

You said in a press conference that out of the 43000 feature films that have been made in this country since the dawn of cinema, only 5000 have been preserved. What do you believe justifies this callous attitude towards our film heritage?

The tendency to preserve is not inherent in our culture. There is a clear lack of initiative in the field of archiving. There is also a lack of a proper series of steps being taken by the established authorities to educate the young generation of film lovers, or even the current members of the film fraternity.

Do you believe that this lackadaisical attitude also stems from a disinterest from a commercial standpoint in the preservation and later, exhibition, of these films?

I believe that these films, once released, will definitely find a commercial audience. There is an also a sustained effort from our side (NFAI) to upgrade these films to more updated formats – for instance, the present edition of IFFI features an exhibition of 5 obscure Indian films – includingRojulu Marayi, Marthanda Varma, Ashok Kumar and Parwana, in their blu-ray versions.

So there is an audience out there. And you have updated films to contemporary formats. Will we see them commercially releasing anytime soon then?

No. Because currently, there are too many glitches in the process to allow one of these old films to release in theatres smoothly. NFAI only preserves these films. We do not hold the copyright to them. The copyright is still held by the producers of the film, and even if we were to enter a profit-sharing partnership with them, the process itself is ridden with just too many roadblocks. Most of them are third-generation inheritors of a film that was made, say, in the 1940s, and while they are ready to let go of a film, they refuse to let go of a legacy. READ MORE

3rd Global FIlm Festival, Noida

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 17:56:00 +0000

International Film & Television Club (IFTC) is organizing the 3^rd Global Film Festival; Noida from 12 to 14^th November, 2010 at Marwah Studios, Film City, Noida.

The film festival will be focusing on the theme of children this year by bringing in films from diverse country such as Iran, France, America, Spain and U.K. The opening film of festival will be a Japanese Anime film, Nitobeh and the closing will be a Spanish Masterpiece Spirit of the beehive.

The festival is also organizing seminars and workshops that will be held throughout the 3 days. The prominent topics to be explored in seminars are Commercial Viability of Children Films (Headed by renowned director Mr. Sudhir Mishra), Are animation films for children only (by Mr. Kundan Shah) and How to make children films available in Multiplexes (By Ms. Sai Paranjpye). The workshops will be held on Delhi: A venue for shooting films, Cinema and social Responsibility and Children Films not a child’s play to be taken by Mr. Sudhir Mishra, Mr. Kundan Shah and Ms. Sai Paranjpye respectively.

Each day will also have networking lunch open for all attendees along with dinner. Attendees and students will have the opportunity to interact with film directors.

The film festival has been programmed by Cine Darbaar. The festival on children has been programmed keeping in mind the various facets of childhood- its confusions, the first love, generation gap & the general cheerfulness of it all. Cine Darbaar has been programming various such festivals throughout the city and is engrossed in creating a space for good cinema in the country.

Global Film Festival is the only film festival in NCR that offers international cinema. IFTC has been engaged in promoting cinema by conducting seminars, symposiums, national & international film festivals. Previously organized editions include focus on peace and spirituality in 2008 & Documentary films in 2009, which brought world cinema to the city Noida successfully.

PROGRAMMED BY CINE DARBAAR
Schedule:
12th November, 2010 10:30 AM
Nitobah, Japan,
12th November, 2010, 2:30 PM
Blue Umbrella by Vishal Bharadwaj, India, 2006, 90 Min
12th November, 2010, 4:00 PM
400 Blows by Francois Truffaut, France, 1959, 99 Min
12th November, 2010, 6:30 PM
Ivan’s Childhood by Andrei Tarkovsky, Russia, 1962, 95 Min.
13th November, 2010, 12:00 PM
The Bicycle Thieves by Vittorio De Sica, Italy, 93 Min 1948
13th November, 2010, 4:00 PM
Baduk by Majid Majidi, Iran, 1992, 90 Min.
13th November, 2010, 6:30 PM
Mouchette by Robert Bresson, France, 1967, 78 Min
14th November, 2010, 12:00 PM
Kirikou et les sauvages by Ocelot Michel, France, 2000, 75 Min
14th November, 2010, 4:00 PM
Bellisimia, by Luchino Visconti, Italy, 1951, 115 Min
14th November, 2010, 6:30 PM
The Spirit of the beehive by Victor Erice, Spain, 1973, 97 Min

IA Weekly: Rakht Charitra

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 09:35:00 +0000

casual appraisal of how Varma tends to assume his audiences know everything beforehand, and much like a bad storyteller who cannot wait to tell you about the twist in the tale without setting it up first, he is essentially making films only he can enjoy.

Varma is often believed to have triggered some sort of a revolution in terms of how Bollywood films are made – a reputation that is largely a yield of his 1998 film Satya. His frequent complaint is that a lot of the writers on his films, or even his audiences, tend to compare whichever of his efforts is the latest to feature on the marquee with this earlier tour-de-force of a film– thereby invariably resulting in a circumstance of unbalanced and unequal comparison, where Satya will always triumph, but more importantly, his latest film will always be given the raw end of the deal. It is to Satya’s credit and some sort of a perverse ode to its endurance that a film its director makes in 2010 is still compared to a film he made in 1998Read More

Delhi is talking world cinema, thanks to film clubs

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:49:00 +0000

The action on Indian Auteur might be a little less these days but we slowly sorting out all the mess to get things back in order. From the content to design. But our offline efforts with IA sister body Cinedarbaar is being noticed. Here is a major news wire(IANS) service story on film clubs in Delhi.

Cinedarbaar is actively involved in the space for film programming, interaction, discussion and championship of auteur studies. It has been involved in programming and otherwise in over 15 festivals, 10 film workshops, 5 major Film Interaction Programme( National Film Awards, Indian Panorama etc), Summer Film Camp for Children and Cinephile Meetings in the last one and a half year of its existence.

Delhi is talking world cinema, thanks to film clubs

By Mohita Nagpal
New Delhi, Aug 16 (IANS) No longer are “Breathless”, “Rashomon” and “Amores Perros” the preserve of the well-heeled at Delhi’s arty evenings. Critically acclaimed international films like these have struck a chord among non-elite audiences thanks to small groups “fighting for serious cinema”.

The drive to promote world cinema here was started by cultural centres like India Habitat Centre, the British Council of India and India International Centre.

It gained momentum ever since “drawing room discussion groups” joined the bandwagon and started small film clubs like Kriti Film Club, Cine Darbaar, Grey Zone Film Club, Mocha Film Club and ZoltÃ¡n FÃ¡bri Film Club, named after the famous Hungarian film director. And these are not among the 18 registered ones in Delhi.

Each one of these is trying to “educate the audience” by showing the acclaimed works of iconic directors like Jean-Luc Godard, Akira Kurosawa and Ingmar Bergman. But their responsibility doesn’t end with the screening.

For them, the more important part is to hold stimulating discussions post-screenings.

Gautam Kaul, president of the Delhi Film Society, welcomes the trend and says: “It is an extension of the film society movement. Young people are coming together with the DVDs of their favourite directors and discussing films. It is a very welcome sign.”

Often these clubs tie up with the cultural centres of different countries and the latter bear the cost. Also, they use social networking sites like Facebook to draw enthusiasts.

The film clubs handpick movies on the basis of the creative work of a director, actor, screenplay writer and sometimes even the cinematographer.

Kaul believes such initiatives are important, considering there is a dearth of literature on foreign filmmakers.

“In my time, we used to have magazines like ‘Sight and Sound’ which talked about film production and creativity. Today we have magazines which do not talk about production at all. They are concerned about the private lives of actors. That’s the disadvantage of this generation,” Kaul said.

“But when the youngsters sit down in large numbers to watch a movie, they are basically sitting down for a film class. I welcome this trend,” he added.

Supriya Suri, who studied filmmaking in Paris, was so smitten by the cine club culture there that she began her own after returning to India.

“In Paris, people take their interests very seriously. They attend screenings; they know about the history and tradition of cinema. Film clubs are very active over there. I am trying to replicate the same culture in India,” she said.

Suri launched the Cine Darbaar film club in February 2009 in collaboration with two of her friends and has so far organised 20 movie festivals across the capital. From a retrospective of Ang Lee films to showcasing Iranian cinema, Cine Darbaar has been religiously screening quality movies in packed halls.

Cine Darbaar on an average gets 200 film enthusiasts for every screening, which happens at least once a month. Entry is free.

“We want people to take cinema more seriously and not just as an entertainment medium. We want to change the viewing habits of people. We want to expose them to more mature cinema,” Suri said.

She also believes criticism is essential for film education and that is why her team tries to engage viewers in serious discussions on every aspect of moviemaking.

“After every screening, we ask the viewers about their interpretation of the film. Each one of us interprets cinema in a different way. We try to show the director’s point of view, as to what he tried to show through the film,” said Suri.

Thanks to these thought-provoking sessions, many movie aficionados have developed a critical eye towards the craft. Take the case of Ankit Varma, 24, a regular at these festivals.

Talking about his experience of watching “Vertigo” at the Alfred Hitchcock Film Festival, he said: “In the discussion, one possible interpretation that came up was that the director has used the ’spiral’ theme in the movie. Right from the heroine’s hairstyle to the design of the staircase, the examples made sense as the theme was perfectly in sync with the film’s title.”

Futuristically speaking, it might be long before Godard or Kurosawa or Bergman become household names, but you never know. As Godard himself once said: “Cinema is the most beautiful fraud in the world.”

Satoshi Kon- (1963-2010)

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:35:00 +0000

When dreams and reality coincide, the concoction can be deliciously smooth and fantastic, literally. Satoshi Kon’s anime mostly allude to that concoction – the merging of the real and the fantasy, the thoughts and the illusions blurring lines between. But these are not the only pegs to his storytelling. Kon’s creation are an amazing introduction to the world where line blurs, the definition concedes a conundrum, giving way to a chaos of simplicity. Like the name, Studio Madhouse, that has produced all his films till date, Kon’s films delve into a realm that tries to reflect the utter madness that our imagination can infuse into any ordinary circumstance. Portions of his films feel like captured memories, the heightened ones of course.

Manga –artist turned anime director, Satoshi Kon’s oeuvre, over the last two decades, garnered him the name “auteur anime director”. His films have been known for defying the conventional genre and their exquisite, fantastic choice of subject. Though a protégé of the famous Katsuhiro ‘Akira’ Otomo and often hailed at the same level with Spirited Away director Hayao Miyazaki, Kon clearly carves a different space altogether. The filmography of this graduate from the Musashino College of Arts, includes films like Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika and the alternate television anime series, Paranoia Agent, among others. Most of his works are adaptations or influenced by some form of previously existing works- like Perfect Blue is loosely based on the novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi. In Kon’s words, he was given the freedom to use his interpretation and play with the script only keeping the three keywords – ‘idol’, ‘horror’ and ‘fan’. And these are the primary premises of the film. Like he said, he deliberately employed different point of view to his storytelling. What you remember at the end of the film is the sense of déjà vu that the protagonist Mima undergoes throughout this play-within-a-play film. READ MORE

Anime Cine Experience, New Delhi

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:27:00 +0000

Cine Darbaar, in collaboration with the Embassy of Japan, Directorate of Film Festivals, Japan Foundation, is organizing a 3-day Animation film festival at Siri Fort auditorium II on the 20^th, 21^st & 22^nd August, 2010. It’s the first time that a festival will be celebrating Japanese-Anime, Manga (Comics) and Pop-culture in India. Anime Cine Experience will be bringing the great anime works of Japan with films like The Girl who leapt through time, Grave of the fireflies, 5cm per second, Voices of Distant Star, The Place Promised in Our Early Days. In its inaugural edition the festival will showcase Japanese comics, anime serial, short film competitions, pop-culture exhibitions.

To give the audience a wider understanding of Anime, the festival will have workshops and special discussions will be conducted by one of the emerging game designers in India, Mr. Shubham Mauria, on the topic of The Relation of Anime and Its Avatars in Popular Culture in Relation to Japanese Gaming and Beyond. While Mr. Kshitiz Anand will be conducting “A workshop on animation with focus on Japan and its relation to world animation, ideas on 3D & 2D and the basic animation market”

Apart from these workshops, festival is also organizing a short-film competition. All the entries will run in a loop on Plasma TV in the Siri Fort auditorium lobby, which will be available for viewing by all the attendees of the festival. Short Anime corner will screen the 10 best short films and the top three films will be awarded. The festival will also have an exhibition of Manga (Japanese comics in English) along with a photography exhibition on Japan.

Cine Darbaar’s sister organization- Indian Auteur, a film journal will be publishing a special issue on Anime for the festival with the help of Japan Foundation. The issue will cover articles on directors like Hayao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, Mamoru Oshii, Makoto Shinkai and more. Indian Auteur is the only web journal existing in India writing extensively on Indian and world cinema. With the special Anime issue Indian Auteur will be going print in August and can be subscribed by all educational institutes as well as culture centers.

Cine Darbaar & Embassy of Japan, Japan Foundation & Directorate of Film Festivals, India invite you to

Anime Cine Experience

SIRI FORT AUDITORIUM-II

20th August, 2010

6: 30 PM: The Girl who leapt through time: 2006, 98 MINUTES, ROMANCE/DRAMA

Synopsis: A teenage girl finds that she has the ability to leap through time. With her newfound power, she tries to use it to her advantage, but soon finds that tampering with time can lead to some rather discomforting results.

…
21st August, 2010

11:30 AM: Voices of a Distant Star: 2003, 25 MINUTES, ROMANCE/SCIENCE FICTION

Synopsis: A high school romance is split apart when one member of the couple enlists in the UN space army to fight aliens who attacked our Martian colony. We follow their lives through the text messages they send one another, though the delivery times increase from a few minutes while she trains in orbit to over a eight years as her crew delves deeper into the universe searching for Earth’s enemies.

12:30 – 2:30 PM WORKSHOP by Khitiz Anand

3:30 PM 5 Centimeters Per Second: a chain of short stories about their distance, 2007, 63 MINUTES, DRAMA/ROMANCE

Synopsis: Takaki and Akari are two classmates in elementary school. During their time together they have become close friends. Their relationship is tested when Akari moves to another city because of her parents’ jobs. Both of them struggle to keep their friendship alive, as time and distance slowly pulls them apart. When Takaki finds out that he is moving further away, he decides to visit Akari one last time.

5:30 PM: The Place Promised in Our Early Days, 2004 91 MINUTES, DRAMA/SCIENCE FICTION

Synopsis: The story takes place in a alternate postwar period, in 1996, where Japan is divided. Hokkaido is ruled by the “Union” while Honshu and other southern islands are under US authority. A tall tower was built on Hokkaido, which could even be seen from Tokyo. In the summer of 1996, three middle-school students make a promise that they’ll cross the border with a self-constructed plane and unravel the tower’s secret, but their project was abandoned after the girl, Sayuri Sawatari, became mysteriously ill and transferred to Tokyo. Years later on the brink of another war Hiroki Fujisawa finds out that Sayuri had been in coma since then, and he asks Takuya Shirakawa to help him finding a way to wake her up.

22nd August, 2010

11:30 AM: Short Anime Corner

1: 30 PM: Talk by Mr. Shubhank Mauria

4: 00 PM : Chibi Maruko Chan: 93 Min/1990

Synopsis: As the second term commences, Maruko and her classmates return to their small groups. Maruko’s group includes two naughty boys and Maruko is forced to be one of their subordinates. She seems to face a lot of pressure at school. As the school’s athletic meet approaches, all the classmates are busy exercising. Maruko is no exception, although her laziness means that she is late sometimes. Maruko realizes that the two boys rival each other in everything they do, and that their friendship is deep and strong.

6:00 PM : Grave of the fireflies: 88 MIN/1988

Synopsis: Setsuko and Seita are brother and sister living in wartime Japan. After their mother is killed in an air raid they find a temporary home with relatives. Having quarreled with their aunt they leave the city and make their home in an abandoned shelter. While their father’s destiny who was a soldier is unknown the two must depend on each other to somehow keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. When everything is in short supply, they gradually succumb to hunger and their only entertainment is the light of the fireflies. READ MORE

The Steel;When It Melts

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 07:53:00 +0000

This tradition of exposing the vulnerability of the male ego, in cinema, ran rather curiously, simultaneously with the tradition of taking a male figure and granting him exclusivity among lesser mortals. Would it be wrong to say that for a long time, and even now, the discussion on the nature of the male ego has remained the most significant dialectic between purely studio-based mainstream blockbuster cinema and smaller cinema? Is it ironic that Ben Hur and Shadows were released close to each other; or that the same year gave us Luke Skywalker and Alvy Singer? READ MORE

Retrospective of Ang Lee Films

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:01:00 +0000

Taipei Economic and Cultural Centre, New Delhi, in collaboration with Directorate of Film Festivals will be hosting acclaimed Director Ang Lee’s Retrospective Film Festival from 23^rd to 25^th July 2010 at Siri Fort Auditorium, New Delhi. Thereafter, the movies will be showcased in Pune and Kolkata. The five films that will be screened for audiences are: Fine Line (1984), Pushing Hands (1992), The Wedding Banquet (1993), Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (2000). This festival traces Ang Lee’s journey starting from his first college. READ MORE

IA: Elusive Dream: XI

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 06:36:00 +0000

IA talks about experimental auteur Tom Chomont and examines his role in the hierarchy of the 1960s Structuralist Cinema in America, while also inaugurating its annual Film Critic Symposium in its Issue 11 READ MORE

IA Weekly- Raavan

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 12:01:00 +0000

Rossellini says, “A shot is not right when it is beautiful, but beautiful when it is right,”; and these attributes (right, or wrong) can be attached to something only in relation to something else; only within a context; which is to say, something is right only when something else is wrong. In the case of a film, that context is a set, almost unchangeable aesthetic plan that a film chooses for itself. Read More

Indian Auteur

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 17:31:00 +0000

‘What is the point of a dream that is not unattainable? If it’s attainable, is it even a dream still?’

A vacation has been imposed upon Indian Auteur; and this is no time for a vacation. Like Robert Frost’s traveler being compelled to make a detour which he undertakes in his sleepy stupor, we have become victims of our circumstance. Due to some technical and design issues, the website's content has not been updated. We are working on making the interface and experience for our readers more enjoyable.

In a recent interview with trade analyst Komal Nahta, setup to make it seem like a serious discussion on his film Housefull’s grand success, director Sajid Khan took the opportunity presented to him by the commercial vindication of his film to ridicule each new filmmaker who tries to attempt a personal film because well, apparently, they do not know how to make films for the audience and he does. The point he states, and overstates is that he is a man deserving of his position as a film director because he knows his ‘audience’, loves his ‘audience’, and is aware of what his ‘audience’ wants. The irony, ofcourse, is lost on him; because through his consistent emphasis on an imaginary collective and its homogenous taste – ‘what the audience wants’ – he essentially talks in the language of the marketing executive who chooses to refuse attention to the individual, and the complexity of individual taste, instead choosing to generalize a set of pre-determined qualities to a large group of people, thus, essentially deeming them undeserving of their status as individuals and worthy of existence only when in a collective – thus, the oft-thrown around terms – market, mass, target audience etc.

Therefore, when someone like Sajid Khan talks of his awareness of what the audience wants, he is essentially denying them status as individuals perfectly capable of individual choices, instead choosing to refer to them as a single whole – that such kind of contempt for the audience is now pandered as ‘love’ for the audience is a sign of the times we live in. Even as Alfred Hitchcock, one of the greatest commercial successes talked lovingly about his audiences, he talked about their attributes as human beings – their fears, their vulnerabilities, their anxieties – and never as contributors to the revenue of his latest film. Sajid Khan is either smarter than we think, and is aware of the irony resident within his device of disguising his sheer contempt of his audience and their lack of taste as his love for them; or he is just the prototype of everything that is so miserably wrong with our cinema. We prefer the latter. Actually, we are not that sure.

It wouldn’t be an ancient fool’s dream, thus, to demand of every rational quarter of the modern Indian media spectrum to rally against Bollywood’s consistent disdain for its audience – of how its gaze is always turned at the rumour of the murder, and not the murder itself. But even as we make the demand, the onus lies on us. We really don’t need this vacation when each second means we lose another inch of our territory. We apologize to the loyal section of our readers for this break.

We will be back, very soon.

- Indian AuteurTm

ABOUT: Indian Autuer is an independent film initiative that is run with the help of few like minded cinephiles in New Delhi. Indian Auteur is independently funded with no donation or advertisement to its credit in the last one year.

Note: The Indian Auteur team in the last two months has successfully helped out in the Alfred Hitchcock Retrospective in New Delhi/ And the Summer Film Camp for Children, New Delhi

PIC:- Into the Wild.

Retrospective of Alfred Hitchcock Films

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 09:15:00 +0000

American Center and Cine Darbaar welcomes you for the retrospective of Alfred Hitchcock movie from May 7^th-9^th 2010, American Center, New Delhi. Discussions follow each screening.

In its continuing efforts to screen films by past and present cinematic masters for a large group of people and subsequently inculcating critical discourse through discussions among the audience members, thereby attempting a restoration of cinema to a communal activity, Cinedarbaar will organize a retrospective of the films of cinema heavyweight Alfred Hitchcock. The event will feature interactive sessions conducted by the writers from Indianauteur.com – typical of all events organized by Cinedarbaar, multimedia presentations to illustrate various aesthetic schemes employed by Hitchcock to achieve the title of ‘Master of Suspense’, and his everlasting influence on hordes of cinema greats who followed him. READ MORE

Cannes 2010 lineup

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 18:41:00 +0000

The prestigious Cannes Film Festival, held annually at Palais des Festivals et des Congrès in the French city of Cannes since 1946, has announced the list of films in its official selection for its 63^rd edition, to be held from 12^th May to 23^rd May 2010. Read More

Summer Film Camp

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 07:28:00 +0000

Cine Darbaar is a non-profit welfare society has been engaged in promoting cinema in India and Indian films internationally. Its vision lies in programming and curating films with the purpose of taking cinema seriously in our country by developing sensibilities through exposure to good cinema.

Cine Darbaar’s focus lies in making a good platform for education in cinema in India. Hence it has been organizing workshops for all demographics in India and provides opportunities to those who lack the accessibility to learn about the medium.

DETAILS

Venue: Film City, Marwah Studios, Sec 16-A, Noida

Duration of the workshop: 12 Days

Dates: 24th May to 3rd June 2010

OUTLINE SUMMARY

The Cinedarbaar Summer Film Camp basis its activities upon the belief that the children are not provided with enough opportunities or outlets for the expression of their creative, intellectual or social beliefs – and with the oncoming of the digital media and its utilization in the process of filmmaking, children can now be enabled to produce their own films, which will be their personal documents of expression, articulation and communication. These digital films they make will be the modern day versions of yesteryear’s personal diary.

Cinema education is not a part of school curriculum, and by introducing the students to the intricacies of filmmaking, the workshop will provide them with a chance to explore their creativity and apply their talent to something productive.READ MORE

Indian Auteur- March 2010

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 07:48:00 +0000

The Madcap Laughs:

IA TABLE OF CONTENTS: Volume no 2 Issue no-1, March 2010

E-Mag Read Online

Download Online

Articles on the web

AUTEUR

Postmodernity and the Cinematic Object in the films of R. W. Fassbinder- Devdutt

LA Bande Designee

Omniyam- Kamal Swarop/Jay Krishnan

Cover Story

Shion Sono Exposed- Jasper Sharp

The Man of the Moment: Sono Sion- Anuj

Practical Joker and AirMan- Ebrahim Kabir

Dreaming in Darkness- Sagorika Singha

Exposing Memories- Sachin Gandhi

From The Vault

Cinema and ethics: Somo Sahi

Cinedarbaar Film Club

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 18:24:00 +0000

CINEDARBAAR

Indian Auteur: Feb 2010, Issue no-9 online

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 20:51:00 +0000

EDITORIAL:- LOVE EXPOSURE:

Boa Sr, died a broken heart, she was about 85. She suffered from loneliness and isolation, as she had no one to speak to. At the time of her death, she passed away with histories(s) that linked to a tribe that was 65,000 years old. She was the last surviving member of the Bo tribe of Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. In the only reality that we know of- death- Boa Sr, became a memory. One that is hardly documented or one that is never represented, in other words she became, a dream. A figment of imagination, of which mainstream India, has absolutely no clue. With the ever changing Indian landscape coupled with our power to show celebration of mainstream cinema and exploitative documentary (the only possible identity for most Indian documentary films). The state of affairs of our own being is reduced to nothingness with each passing day.

Our choice to express our identity that contains our personal world view has become limited. It’s next to impossible for most people to break away from the conditioned ideas of representation of their own lives. Bollywood is playing a major role in the construction of this massive blockage. It acts like a virus that has spread in all aspects of our lives. A clear indication is the methods the news media applies to talk about the existence of the state and its citizens. It films the realities of only those subjects that has information value even before the film is shot, much like the documentaries or the fiction films made in this country. That is the reason why people like Bo only become stories after their disappearance.

As we enter into the second year of our independent existence, we reflect upon such issues in this edition of the magazine. It has become vitality important to contemplate not just the work at hand (education via cinema and film criticism) but also bringing forth the missing images that exist in different states of our country. In this issue, we try to achieve that by looking at cinema via a photo essay of Bhopal, republishing a film script (that likely will never get made) as an graphic novel series, Omniyam. Also, from our yearly traveling experience via organizing film festivals, film workshops, cinephile meetings, discussions and running an e-magazine, IA authors attempt to present the state of film

INDIAN AUTEUR:

FEB 2010, Issue no-9

READ: E-Mag Online

DOWNLOAD- E-mag

ISSUE No-9 Feb 2010

(articles on web)

AUTEUR

Notes on Directors

Directors Report Card

COVER STORY

What they forgot to tell you- Kshitiz Anand

Which Way is the Monolith?- Anuj Malothra

IDEAS FOR CINEMA: The journey so far- Supriya Suri

The Survival of the seventh art: Sagorika Singha

Omniyam- Kamal Swarop/Jay Krishnan

From the Archive

The Cinema of Hollis Frampton

Horror Cine Experience

noreply@blogger.com (nitesh) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:39:00 +0000

The Indian Auteur Tm, run a small independent-cinephile lead' Cinedarbaar Welfare Society', under the leadership of artistic director, Supriya Suri in New Delhi, India. The society is extensively involved in pushing film education, the ideas of film programming and showcasing films in schools, colleges,villages, towns and cities its involved in creating a forum for discussion, learning and debate.

...And creating a space against the tyranny of Bollywood.

In Feburary, Cinedarbaar is organising its latest event called ‘Horror Cine Experience’ at Instituto Cervantes or the Spanish Culture Center from the 25^th to the 27^th of Feb 2010 with media partners in the form of Radio Noida and BatchBuzz Read More

VISIT: INDIAN AUTEUR.