No paeans to ‘jaan’

Film-makers seem to have fallen out of love with Mumbai, the city in which they live and work. No ode has been sung to ‘Bambai’ in the last two decades As home to Hindi film industry, Mumbai has hogged the space as backdrop of many films.The romanticisation of the city and various stereotypes that it […]

Child power

Utpal Borpujari is a bold film-maker who chose to take up the theme of witch-hunting in a remote Assamese village and is now getting the National Award for Best Assamese film Utpal Borpujari was a well-known media critic from Assam before he got into film direction. An MTech in Applied Geology from IIT-Roorkee, he won […]

Grandfather next door

As an old Rishi Kapoor and an older Amitabh Bachchan come to a screen near you in 102 Not Out, a tribute to the ever-old man of Hindi cinema, AK Hangal As the resolutely old are set to find a story celebrating a centenarian on Hindi screen this Friday in Umesh Shukla’s 102 Not Out, […]

Talent Roll-Call

It’s celebration time for the makers of Newton, Baahubali and Toilet: Ek Prem Katha Mainstream blockbuster Baahubali: The Conclusion won the National Award for best popular film providing wholesome entertainment, besides being named for special effects and action direction. Ganesh Acharya won for his choreography for the Hindi film Toilet: Ek Prem Katha. Hindi film […]

MANGO MELODIES

In literature and on screen, mangoes often inspire lyrical thoughts. However, there isn’t a rich enough repertoire to match the fruit’s popularity As mangoes are on their way to hit the summer fruits market, there is obviously more to the fruit than the clichéd Alphonso features. One may also be sceptical about the sense of […]

DISCORDANT NOTE

The concept of Mile Sur worked when born, failed when reborn. It can’t strike strike a chord with a generation which sees celebrities every day on the small screen Three decades separate two generations in India. One grew up on musical homilies on national integration on Doordarshan. The other trolls or fawns a cross-section of […]

NO SONGS FOR SUMMER

The Hindi film industry has produced very few songs for this season, compared to the other three seasons. Perhaps love is scorched by the tropical sun While literary scholars can argue what T S Eliot actually meant when he called April the cruellest month, it rings true for India. It’s not always about what April […]

NOVEL CREATIONS

Great works of literature have not done too well as movies whereas mediocre books do better. Film-makers must find a way adapt the missing word More than a decade ago, in the afterglow of winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2001, VS Naipaul said that novels had outlived their utility and were likely to […]