Saeed Mirza
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Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho! (Dir. Saeed Mirza, India, 1984) – ‘So, who says there is no happiness here?’
A cursory search of the term ‘chawl’ offers a definition of ‘low quality housing’, which can’t be any further from the truth regarding the abject state of housing for the lower and underclass in India. What chawl actually equates to is poor sanitation, overcrowding, cramped living conditions and squalor. Saeed Mirza’s 1984 work Mohan Joshi Continue reading
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Canonizing Indian Parallel Cinema – Part 3: The Transitional Years (1978 – 1979)
This Third phase marked the transitioning of Parallel Cinema into perhaps the high point of creativity. During the Emergency, the FFC criteria was re-written in 1976, whereby avant-garde pursuits were discouraged and ‘Indianness’ promoted. Perhaps it would be absurd to say this was the beginning of the end but risk, adventure and experimentation would be Continue reading
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SALIM LANGDE PE MAT RO / Don’t Cry for Salim the Lame (Dir. Saeed Akhtar Mirza, 1989, India) – ‘Kutte Ki Maut…’
Salim Langde Pe Mat Ro is one of Mirza’s most disturbing films, exploring the contemporary identities of Indian Muslims in Mumbai, a work that serves as an extension and indirect follow up to M. S. Sathyu’s Garam Hawa. In terms of research, Mirza spent time in the deprived milieu of Bombay, interviewing many hoodlums and Continue reading
Movie Mahal 