Omar Ahmed
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AAKROSH / Cry of the Wounded [Dir. Govind Nihalani, 1980, India] – ‘I burn from within…’
In the dialogue-less opening to Aakrosh, Bhiku (Om Puri), the Adivasi labourer looks on in chains as the body of his dead wife (Smita Patil in a cameo) is cremated before he is led away by the police to jail. The pot marked face, protruding eyes, leathery skin of Bhiku amount to an image of Continue reading
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CFP: Sholay at 45 – A one day symposium at Birmingham City University (UK), 8 April 2020
Call for Papers 8 April 2020, Birmingham City University, UK August 2020 will mark 45 years of the film Sholay/Embers (1975). Written by Salim-Javed, produced by G.P. Sippy and directed by Ramesh Sippy, it is arguably one of the most popular films of modern Hindi cinema. In almost any audience or industry list of “What Continue reading
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THE SEVENTH WALK (Dir. Amit Dutta, 2013, India) – Modulations of Light & Space
In Amit Dutta’s The Seventh Walk (2013) the camera meanders, weaves and glides through a forest, replicating and distorting the gaze of New Delhi based Indian artist, Paramjit Singh. The dolly shots, evocatively staged, depict the spaces of the forest as oneiric and mysterious. There is sensuality at work in Dutta’s ghostly imagining of the forest, Continue reading
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ESTHEPPAN (Dir. Govindan Aravindan, 1979, India)
Aravindan’s 1979 feature film Estheppan (Stephen) is a companion piece to Kummatty, also released in 1979. Estheppan, a mythical entity conjured by a Christian fishing village in Kerala, materialises magically in the contested narratives of the village folk. It is the restful Keralan coastline Aravindan turns to as a natural landscape from which Estheppan emerges. Continue reading
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