TOKYO IS DREAMING

13 BCD

13 Basement

Hauz Khas Village

New Delhi

13 BCD

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

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:-

Nandini Valli (Indian), Seated 1, 2006, from the series Definitive Reincarnate, inkjet print on archival paper, 79 x 76 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai © 2011 Nandini Valli

Cinephilia&Beyond

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

(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

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

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