Parallel Cinema
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OM PURI (1950 – 2017) The Cosmopolitan-Parallel Cinema Actor
The film career of Om Puri is worth more than East is East. But since East is East is the film that first introduced a new generation of film audiences in the West to Om Puri as an actor, it also becomes a blockage to his rich and varied accomplishments. Film critic and writer Aseem Continue reading
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27 DOWN (Dir. Awtar Krishna Kaul, 1974, India) – ‘I just wish to walk…’
27 Down, the only film directed by Awtar Krishna Kaul, before his premature death is one of the great moments in the foundational years of Parallel Cinema. This was the first wave of Parallel Cinema before the FFC criteria was redefined in the mid 1970s because of protestations concerning the types of films being funded Continue reading
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MAMMO (Dir. Shyam Benegal, 1994, India)
When Khalid Mohamed, editor of Filmfare and journalist, wrote a piece on his great aunt in the Times of India he had no idea that Benegal would eventually convince Mohamed to write a screenplay based on the idea. This was made altogether unusual since Mohamed was not the greatest fan of Benegal’s cinema. Mammo (1994) Continue reading
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VIDEO ESSAY: THE POETICS OF ARAVINDAN
A Video Essay in 3 Chapters on Govindan Aravindan’s 1979 film Kumatty (The Bogeyman, India) – Nature | Topography | Magic This new video essay looks at a few of the aesthetic and thematic ideas in the work of Aravindan’s Kumatty (1979). There seems to be a lot of Indian films which are being restored, occasionally playing Continue reading
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ARDH SATYA / HALF TRUTH (Dir. Govind Nihalani, 1983, India)
Govind Nihalani’s directorial debut in 1980 with the award winning Aakrosh (Cry of the Wounded) was inevitable. As an ace cinematographer, Nihalani collaborated closely with Shyam Benegal on many formative semi-realist critiques including Ankur, Nishant, Junoon and Bhumika. Benegal’s scepticism of social institutions and his sensitive representations of women, often victims of patriarchal oppression, would Continue reading
Movie Mahal 