Our First Film Poem: Ishq ki Ijaazat

You can click here to watch the first Film Poem Devanshu and I have created for online release. It is a four-minute video. And you can read the poem below. Let us know your reaction to it. Thanks.

इश्क़ की इजाज़त

दो इश्क़ की इजाज़त, इल्ज़ाम अब हटा दो,

हम ग़ैर हैं नहीं - ये एक बार तो जता दो.

पूछो ज़रा खुदा से जिसने हमें बनाया,

क्यूँ ख्वाहिशें अलग दीं, क्या रंग ये चढ़ाया?

और बोलते हो तुम कि हम क़ुदरती नहीं हैं,

तुम भीड़, हम ज़रा से, तो भीड़ ही सही है?

अपना सके हमें कोई दूसरा खुदा दो...

सदियाँ गुज़र-गुज़र कर करती रहीं गुज़ारिश,

न तुम बदल सके, न ये तोहमतों की बारिश,

फिर भी हमें हमेशा जो चाहते बदलना, 

इन्साफ ये कहाँ का - बस बात ये बता दो…

यूँ सहमे-सहमे कितने यहाँ छुपे हैं,

क़ायदों के पर्दों की ओट में रुके हैं,

ये क़ायदे उठा लो, बाहर हमें बुला लो,

हमको बराबरी की तुम आज इब्तदा दो,

हम ग़ैर हैं नहीं ये एक बार तो जता दो...

थी क़ैद कब मोहब्बत मज़हब के दायरों में ?

न क़ौम रोक पाई, न ज़ात टोक पाई,

न उम्र के फ़रक़ को भी आशिक़ों ने माना,

फिर आज तक हमें क्यूँ है रोकता ज़माना?

दो दिल ही जुड़ रहे हैं, दे दो दुआ इन्हे भी,

इस दिल के जश्न को थोड़ा अपना मयकदा दो,

हम ग़ैर हैं नहीं ये एक बार तो जता दो,

दो इश्क़ की इजाज़त, इल्ज़ाम अब हटा दो.

The Protagonist Puzzle

Okay. So, whether you believe it or not, I just watched the two Terminator movies, for the first time in my life. And let me admit it, I enjoyed them thoroughly. 'The Terminator' (1984) was enagaging and exciting. 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' (1991) went beyond that. It was emotionally moving. And I think it is one mainstream, popular, genre stuff I won't mind watching again and again. This post, however, is not on my opinion about these two movies. It is an attempt to answer a very fundamental question - identifying the protagonist in a story. I hope some of my concepts will be tested and, in the end, consolidated as I discuss the issue below.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Who is a 'protagonist'? Simply speaking, it is the main character in a story. But this vague definition, 'main character', can be gravely misleading. Who is the main character in 'The Terminator'? Is the title character, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the main character? And if he is the protagonist, then who is the antagonist? If we do not go into any definition, clearly, the Terminator in this movie is the antagonist, the villain - we fear him, we don't want him to succeed, we are glad when he is 'terminated' in the end. And if he is the antagonist, who is the protagonist? We have two more 'main' characters in the movie - Sarah Connor, the woman whom the terminator wants to kill, and Kyle Reese, the human resistance fighter sent from the future to protect Sarah. Before we try to solve this protagonist puzzle further, let us have some basic discussions about the features of a protagonist in a movie.

The word 'Protagonist' literally means 'the one with the main or primary agony'. In other words, the character whose conflict is central to the story and is of the biggest concern to the audience is the protagonist. The film is actually the protagonist's active and conflicted journey, pursuing something (which is often defined as his or her "want") and/or undergoing a significant change by the end. We care for, admire, and love the protagonist. We look up to him or her. The protagonist also drives the plot, by indulging in active, visible action, and by taking strong, irreversible decisions at significant moments in the film that become 'plot points'.

In 'The Terminator', Kyle Reese has a lot of traits of being a protagonist. He, unlike Sarah, is active in the story since the beginning, he is more dynamic than her and is pursuing a "want" (to save Sarah), and we admire him and trust him and look up to him (as does Sarah). He also takes several key decisions in the film and guides the comparatively passive Sarah, who is clueless about the happenings for the major part of the film. However, I believe, despite all this, Reese is not the protagonist. Sarah, despite being unaware of the main plot, being comparatively passive, and clinging to Reese for survival, eventually comes across as the protagonist of this film. We definitely care for her more than anyone else, and the film is her journey of discovering her importance and that of her unborn child. From being a usual and inconspicuous waitress in an LA cafeteria, she realises that she is a 'legend' and the only hope for mankind some 45 years from her day. By the end, she decides to take care of herself, and her child, and make sure that the hope lives on. It won't be wrong to liken her with the journey of Harry Potter in the first book of the series or of Neo Anderson in 'The Matrix' (1999). At times, we must conclude, the protagonist is not as active and dynamic as we expect them to be when the story begins. But by the end, he or she goes through a life-changing journey, and adopts the centre-stage, defeating the antagonist, with the help of a powerful secondary character. In my opinion, Sarah Connor is the protagonist of 'The Terminator', unless we settle down for a safer conclusion that both Sarah and Kyle Reese are the protagonists, as in most love stories. And 'The Terminator' is very much their love story as well.

'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' has four main characters. The film has an amazing twist in the 25th minute when we realise that the character played by Schwarzenegger is actually there to save the child - John Connor, and defeat T-1000, the advanced prototype liquid-metal terminator who clearly is one of the most menacing and strong antagonists in film history. Sarah Connor returns in the film as well and she is determined to save her child, John, for the sake of humanity. She is not only more dynamic, active, and controlling the course of the story than her character in the first film, but also in comparison with her son, John, who in this movie plays the 'Harry Potter' or the 'Neo Anderson' - a legend who has just discovered that he is way more special than he thought he was. Both Sarah and John are extremely endearing - we completely care for them and we admire them as they take key decisions in the film. For most part, I felt John is the protagonist, very similar in nature to his Mom's protagonist character from the first movie. But in the final act of the film, my opinion changed. I suddenly realised that the Terminator has been pursuing his want most actively in the film, fighting this invincible antagonist and having a journey of his own - learning common sense and colloquial speech, understanding emotions, and fulfilling promises. In the final act, he is almost destroyed, when he rises again, and overcomes the final and the most frightening conflict - the climax, where he saves John and Sarah, terminates T-1000, and most importantly, takes the most vital decision of terminating himself for the sake of humanity. In the closing moments when we see him going away, we may not have tears running down our faces like John, but we do feel a strong sense of gratitude and attachment with this machine that was our hero throughout the film. And the final image, of his fingers curling to form a 'thumbs-up' as his entire body disappears just locks it for us - a cinematic image that will live forever. Perhaps it was the trickery of the title of the last movie that caused this little confusion in me. But in 'Terminator 2', unlike the first movie, the title character is very much the protagonist, like in most movies.

Gurudev Uvaacha #6

"I am always watching movies... One of the nice things about my life, because I've done fairly well in cinema, it's kind of afforded me a chance to almost live an academic's life. And so my feeling is I'm studying for my professorship in the history of world cinema and the day I die is the day I graduate... A kick of study of some sort... I just explore it. And I just voraciously watch them, making notes on them, may be for a future book, may be for a future study, or may be for my own gratification."

- Quentin Tarantino at Cannes 2014

Greatest Canadian Films of All Time

I just finished watching Atom Egoyan's 'The Adjuster'. This is his fourth film that I watched and I must admit that now I am a huge fan of his work. Too bad I discovered him so late. While reading about the film, I also found something interesting. Let me share it with you below.

Since 1984, a list of greatest Canadian films of all times is compiled by the Toronto International Film Festival guys, every ten years. So, there have been three such lists so far. And the new list should be up this year. I have merged the three lists to come up with the names of 18 greatest Canadian films. As on date, I have watched only 7 of these (marked in bold). There is so much to do, as a film-buff!

1. Mon oncle Antoine (1971/ Claude Jutra)
2. Goin' down the Road (1970/ Don Shebib)
3. Jesus de Montreal (1989/ Denys Arcand)
4. Les Bons Debarras (1980/ Francis Mankiewicz)
5. Les Ordres (1974/ Michel Brault)
6. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974/ Ted Kotcheff)
7. Le Declin de l'empire americain (1986/ Denys Arcand)
8. The Grey Fox (1983/ Phillip Borsos)
9. The Sweet Hereafter (1997/ Atom Egoyan)
10. Atanarjut: The Fast Runner (2002/ Zacharias Kunuk)
11. Dead Ringers (1988/ David Cronenberg)
12. J.A. Martin, photographe (1977/ Jean Beaudin)
13. Pour la suite du monde (1963/ Pierre Perrault)
14. I've Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987/ Patricia Rozema)
15. Nobody Waved Good-Bye (1964/ Don Owen)
16. Les Invasions barbares (2003/ Denys Arcand)
17. The Adjuster (1991/ Atom Egoyan)
18. La Vraie Nature de Bernadette (1972/ Gilles Carle)

#3 The Poet in Love

मेरे महबूब तुझे मेरी मोहब्बत की कसम,
फिर मुझे नर्गिसी आँखों का सहारा दे दे,
मेरा खोया हुआ रंगीन नज़ारा दे दे.… 

भूल सकती नहीं आँखे वो सुहाना मंज़र
जब तेरा हुस्न मेरे इश्क से टकराया था,
और फिर राह में बिखरे थे हज़ारों नग्में,
मैं वो नग्में तेरी आवाज़ को दे आया था,
साज़-ए-दिल को उन्ही गीतों का सहारा दे दे.… 

याद है मुझको मेरी उम्र की पहली वो घड़ी
तेरी आँखों से कोई जाम पिया था मैंने,
मेरी रग-रग में कोई बर्क-सी लहराई थी
जब तेरे मरमरी हाथों को छुआ था मैंने,
आ मुझे फिर उन्ही हाथों का सहारा दे दे.… 

मैंने इक बार तेरी एक झलक देखी है
मेरी हसरत है कि मैं फिर तेरा दीदार करूँ,
तेरे साए को समझ कर मैं हसीं ताजमहल
चाँदनी रात में नज़रों से तुझे प्यार करूँ
अपनी महकी हुई ज़ुल्फ़ों का सहारा दे दे.… 

ढूँढता हूँ तुझे हर राह में, हर महफ़िल में,
थक गये हैं मेरी मजबूर तमन्ना के कदम,
आज का दिन मेरी उम्मीद का है आखरी दिन,
कल ना जाने मैं कहाँ और कहाँ तू हो सनम,
दो घड़ी अपनी निगाहों का सहारा दे दे.…

सामने आ के ज़रा पर्दा उठा दे रुख़ से,
इक यही मेरा इलाज-ए-ग़म-ए-तनहाई है,
तेरी फुरकत ने परेशान किया है मुझको,
अब तो मिल जा कि मेरी जान पे बन आई है,
दिल को भूली हुई यादों का सहारा दे दे.… 

Shakeel Badayuni (Mere Mehboob, 1963)

Must Watch Before You Die #40: Enter the Void (2009)

I have taken more than six months to come up with this new recommendation as a "must watch", the last being 'Holy Motors' (2012), despite having watched several great movies in this period. But I am very glad while doing this because 'Enter the Void' fits perfectly into the idea that had made me start this series more than three years ago. If you have not watched this hypnotizing, stunning, dream-like, trance-like fim, you are seriously missing out on something. It is indulgance at its best, and watching it makes you feel dizzy, and ecstatic, because the pleasure it offers to your senses is extraordinary by any standards. Very early in the film is a brilliant play of light and sounds, reminding you of the Stargate sequence from '2001: A Space Oddyssey' and you really don't want it to end. Exceptional in its beauty, it may even inspire you to try hard drugs, if this is really what they make you experience. I couldn't tell, but let me confess honestly that I did ponder over the possibility of following our largely-invisible protagonist into the world of substance. I must be grateful to the rest of the film that not only, through the painful journey the guy experiences, kind of warned me against such an experiment, but also let me have a long, intimate glimpse of what a "trip" could be without any real danger. The film, is a trip. But it's also a wonderful meditation on the issues of death, afterlife, reincarnation, out-of-body experiences, incest, and love. You may not want to watch it with your kids or your parents, but you must watch this film, and it would be great if you could couple it with a mental state that suits it well. I will write briefly about my mental state as I watched it, before signing off.

I was in Devprayag. It is a small hill town seventy kilometers northward from Rishikesh in Uttarakhand. It is the place where the two major tributeries, Alaknanda and Bhagirathi, merge into each other to form the Ganges. I had reached there in the afternoon, and after my much-needed siesta, I went out to make a call to my brother to let him know where I am (The visit to this town was a part of an unplanned, several weeks long solo trip I had taken in the hills during this April). I had to go out as my phone had no network and I had to rely on the local phone booths. Hardly I knew that this phone call will become one I won't ever want to forget. Our first film, "Tamaash" had won a National Award and I was completely unaware of it as friends and family celebrated in joy unbound. After having talked with Devanshu and then my Mom, I returned to my little room, that overlooked the excited, noisy Bhagirathi. From my window I could see the moon rise from behind the hills, and could hear the water forcibly break the stillness of the town, and I slowly allowed the news to sink in. I cannot explain how liberating it was to realise that I, at that special moment, was completely alone, and utterly unreachable for anyone, with no phone or internet connectivity. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't have called anyone as the phone booths were shut. Even if I desired, I couldn't have read the congratulatory messages on Facebook. And it was in that moment of liberated and bissful solitude that I decided to pamper myself with this amazing film experience called 'Enter the Void'! Some film experiences go beyond their run-time. This, for me, was definitely one such experience. Magical. Mad. And infinitely memorable.

Straight from the Heart of an Incorrigible Film-Buff

"How do you feel after winning the National Award for your very first film?" In the past few days I have been asked this question several times, and I find myself struggling to come up with an answer. As always, I want to answer it honestly, but doing so will sound incredible, and may dampen the spirits of my well-wishers who definitely are several times happier than me or Devanshu. What the award means to me, the film-maker, is something that cannot be answered briefly, as there are several perspectives to be understood before coming to that. But what it meant to me, the film-buff, to be a part of that function last Saturday is something I would love to share here. We can start by sharing a little trivia that it was the 101th anniversary of the birth of Indian Cinema when this evening at Vigyan Bhavan became a joy forever for me. Now, let us start from the very beginning.

It was February, 2010. Devanshu and I had gone to watch the first show of 'LSD: Love Sex aur Dhokha'. The lead of the second story was also there, among the handful of audience, with his friends. It must have been a proud moment for him. We loved his work and greeted him after the show. He acknowledged our compliment with utmost sincerity and humility. Since that day, he appeared in several films, and somehow, Devanshu and I kept bumping into him at different places in this city, without really introducing ourselves to him. In the next four years, he became Rajkummar Rao, earning unending praise for his several performances, and finally a National Award for Best Actor. Last Friday morning when we reached the airport, we saw him boarding the same flight. Of course, he recognized us as the two guys who keep meeting him randomly, and a "hello" was effortless. But then he was glad to know that we too are going to Delhi for the awards. After the flight, we were taken to the hotel in the same car and we saw the trailer of his upcoming film 'City Lights', again by Hansal Mehta, the director who made 'Shahid' that won them both their National Awards. The film buff in me was so happy for them, and for 'Shahid', that they won this honour. And I was happy for Geetanjali, who won Best Actress. The world has hardly seen her yet, and at the very beginning of her career this award will definitely be a tremendous encouragement and boost. Add to this, several well-deserved awards won by some of the films I truly loved. Met Bishwadeep Chatterjee who won the Sound Design award for 'Madras Cafe' and had a wonderful chat with him. 'Fandry' won Best Child Actor and I told Somnath Avghade how much I loved his performance in his film. He was there with his Dad all the way from Sholapur. Also met Nagraj Manjule, the director, and thanked him for his powerful first film. "I am eagerly awaiting your next", I told him. He smiled his gentle, calm smile. I was more demanding with Anand Gandhi, when I congratulated him for winning the biggest award of the year, Best Film for 'Ship of Theseus'. "All of us are going to have extremely high expectations from your next film. We are dying to see what the author in you has to offer now." I was so happy to see him receive the award with his producer Sohum Shah. Rajeev Ravi winning the Cinematography award for 'Liar's Dice' and 'Miss Lovely' winning for Art Direction also made me feel great about the award list. Of course, whatever clips we saw of other regional language films that won awards that evening filled me with sincere respect and admiration for all those film-makers whom I didn't know or whose works I had not seen. But to be in their company was special.

Ever since the short film 'Kush' won the top prize at Venice 2013, I had been wanting to get in touch with Shubhashish, the young director of the film. It was special to meet him and I told him how thrilled I have been for him since Venice. Meeting Ruchir, the director of 'Mandrake, Mandrake' and Kavin, its cinematographer, was like making new friends. These young film-makers will be big names tomorrow and I will proudly cheer for them. Saurabh Shukla won the Best Supporting Actor for 'Jolly LLB' and I made my Dad meet him who has been his fan since he wrote and acted in 'Satya' (1998). I also told him how that film had affected the fourteen-year old me and how it remains a personal milestone in my life. He most gracefully posed for a photo with my family and signed an autograph for my ten-year old cousin.

However, despite all these wonderful moments and interactions, the biggest high came from the Masters being there, and being awarded on the same stage. The almost overpowering humility of Jahnu Barua and Girish Kasaravalli, both winning their tenth and fifteenth National Awards respectively was the single most important learning for me during my stay in Delhi - to understand how important it is to stay grounded despite all achievements. I wish it were easy! As of now, I can only say that sharing the award with Mr. Kasaravalli was a matter of unthinkable pride for me. Also was special to talk briefly with the spirited Kamal Swaroop. I can't wait to show Tamaash to him, especially because he understands the Kashmiri language. And then, the biggest moment of the evening, was to watch Gulzar Sa'ab receive the Dada Saheb Phalke Award. Teary eyed, smiles on my lips, I clapped incessantly, with hundreds others sitting there, and then rose to give him a long standing ovation. During that moment, clearly, he had overshadowed the President of India in receiving appreciation from the audience. And then he talked. And he talked about Bimal Roy and S.D. Burman, and Salil Choudhury and Pancham Da and A.R. Rahman. Both Devanshu and I were beaming with pride and were overwhelmed with emotion. Whatever we achieve in our lives from here will have its importance, but not many moments will come close to this. Let it go down in history that when Gulzar Sahab received the highest cinema honour of this country, Devanshu and I were physically present there, feeling proud and inspired and humbled, and very, very special.

Thank you jury and the officers at DFF. Thank you the I&B Ministry and thank you honourable President of India, for giving us such wonderful joys to me and my family. It will remain special, all our lives.

True to the Image

The immortal image of the star-director 'Guido', played by Marcello Mastroianni, from Fellini's "8 1/2" is the official face of this year's Cannes film festival, arguably the greatest on this planet. And the recently-announced list of movies to be screened there in the third and fourth week of May shows how the festival has lived up to all expectations, bringing several star-directors under the same roof.

Imagine Jean-Luc Godard, Atom Egoyan, Ken Loach, David Cronenberg, Mike Leigh, and the Dardenne Brothers in competition for the highest prize of the festival - the Palme d'or. And there are more names to this list. Michel Hazanavicius is coming with his next film after 'The Artist'. Tommy Lee Jones has a film he just directed. Then we have Bennett Miller ('Capote', 'Moneyball'), Olivier Assayas (with his fourth Palme d'or nomination; his last film 'Something in the Air' had won awards at Venice 2012), the 25-year old Xavier Dolan with his fifth feature film (all his four films, including 'Laurence Anyways' and 'Tom at the Farm' have won awards at Cannes or Venice), Naomi Kawase (had won Camera d'or in 1997 and this is her fourth Palme d'or nomination since then), and Nuri Bilge Ceylan (five of his films, including 'Distant' and 'Once Upon a Time in Anatolia' have won awards at Cannes and Berlin).

The latest films by Zhang Yimou and Olivier Dahan ('La vie en Rose') are being screened out of competition.

And then we have Wim Wenders, Rolf de Heer from the Netherlands (with seventh film at either Berlin, Venice or Cannes), and Ryan Gosling with his directorial debut among the eighteen films in the Un Certain Regard category. This list also has the sole Indian film, 'Titli' by Kanu Behl.

Meanwhile, I am planning my own "Cannes in Andheri 2014" film festival that will start once I get back to Mumbai.

The Most Scandalous Film I Have Watched?

A Lars von Trier film does not shock me any more. It seems I have accepted him as an unapologetically provocative film-maker and am willing to watch anything he creates, and mostly he offers something much more than just blood and gore and graphic nudity. There have been films like 'Eraserhead', 'Dogtooth', and 'Cannibal Holocaust', which have been very disturbing to watch.Then there are films which are made to cash on their sensational content without any real merit. But to watch an acclaimed master like Nagisa Oshima make 'In the Realm of the Senses (1976)', a film with endless and tiring unsimulated sex and hardly any plot movement or character development, was very shocking for me. And then the climax is graphically so repulsive that I really think this is the most scandalous film I have watched. Please watch it only if you have the gut and the spirit to forgive and forget.

P.S. Have been travelling since the first week of March. Hence no post all this while. Really missing writing on this space. Wish I could multi-task more effectively.

Berlin in Andheri 2014

The recently concluded Berlin Film Festival awarded the top prize to the Chinese film, 'Black Coal, Thin Ice' (2014), making it one of the most eagerly awaited films for cinephiles all across the world. The third film by director Diao Yi'nan has also placed him as another film-maker from China whom the world will be following.

Meanwhile, in the last few weeks I had my own 'Berlin in Andheri' film festival, watching all kinds of films, and discovering some new film-makers - previous awards-winners. The 18 films that I watched as part of this year's festival are the following. Some of them are available on YouTube.

1. Opening Film: Child's Pose (2013/ Romania/ Calin Peter Netzer) Won Golden Bear and FIPRESCI Prize in 2013. Watch it for the portrayal of a conflicted mother-son relationship

2. Cul-de-Sac (1966/ UK/ Roman Polanski) Won Golden Bear in 1966. Watch it if you are a Polanski fan

3. Show Me Love aka Fucking Amal (1998/ Sweden/ Lukas Moodysson) Won Teddy Award for Best Feature Film in 1999. Watch it. Just watch it.

4. Elite Squad (2007/ Brazil/ Jose Padilha) Won Golden Bear in 2008. Watch it if you want to see a foreign-language film that is as stylish and accessible as the best of Hollywood. And then watch its sequel, which is also in IMDB Top 250 currently.

5. Gloria (2013/ Chile/ Sebastian Lelio) Won Silver Bear for Best Actress to Paulina Garcia and two more awards in 2013. Watch it for its brutally honest take on growing old without a partner.

6. I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK (2006/ South Korea/ Park Chan-wook) Won the Alfred Bauer Prize in 2007. Watch it if you want to see something crazy, funny, and sad at the same time.

7. The Nasty Girl (1990/ West Germany/ Michael Verhoeven) Won Silver Bear for Best Director and two more awards in 1990. Watch it if for the quirks. Watch it if you liked 'Amelie' (2001). 

8. Masculin Feminin (1966/ France/ Jean-Luc Godard) Silver Bear for Best Actor to Jean-Pierre Leaud and two more awards in 1966. Watch it if you liked 'Breathless'.

9. Peacock (2005/ China/ Changwei Gu) Jury Grand Prix in 2005. Watch it for its compositions and camerawork.

10. The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012/ Belgium/ Felix Van Groeningen) Won Panorama Audience Award and Label Europa Cinemas Award in 2013. Watch it for the way it blends music with tragedy.

11. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974/ Canada/ Ted Kotcheff) Won Golden Bear in 1974. 

Watch it for the performance of Richard Dreyfuss.

12. Early Works (1969/ Yugoslavia/ Zelimir Zelnik) Won Golden Bear and Youth Film Award in 1969. Watch it if you are interested in socialist ideology and/or the form of cinema.

13. Offside (2006/ Iran/ Jafar Panahi) Won Jury Grand Prix in 2006. Watch it if you are in love with football, or Iranian cinema.

14. The Road to Guantanamo (2006/ UK/ by Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom) Won Silver Bear for Best Director in 2006. Watch it for the way it blends drama with documentary.

15. All Things Fair (1996/ Sweden/ Bo Widerberg) Won Special Jury Prize in 1996. Watch it for its sensitive portrayal of a forbidden love.

16. Sweet Emma, Dear Bobe (1992/ Hungary/ Istvan Szabo) Won Jury Grand Prize in 1992. Watch it for its powerful images, especially the opening and the closing shots.

17. Adaptation (2002/ USA/ Spike Jonze) Won Jury Grand Prize in 2003. I was tempted to recommend it as a "must watch before you die". Watch it to figure out why. And also, why I didn't recommend it.

18. Closing Film: Sophie Scholl - The Final Days (2005/ Germany/ Marc Rothemund) Won Silver Berlin Bears for the director as well as for the actress, Julia Jentsch. Another film on the Resistance against Nazis. But extremely powerful and involving.

Thank You, my Blog!

I am generally not comfortable using the space on this blog to upload pictures about Devanshu and me receiving prizes or attending film festivals with our film. But something happened last evening that forced me to do this. And I am not talking about the three awards that we won last evening. Please allow me this indulgence, and read on...

In the year 1994, the documentary that won the Golden Conch at 'Bombay International Documentary Film Festival' was "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media" by directors Mark Achbar and Peter Wintonick. Twenty years later, in February 2014, the festival, now known as Mumbai International Film Festival (Shorts, Animation, Documentary), had Mark Achbar as the head of one of its juries. Peter Wintonick had passed away less than three months ago and the festival began with a homage to him. "Manufacturing Consent" in these twenty years had already become one of the most famous documentaries in the world.

At the award function, the Mark Achbar led jury was also responsible for the four awards in the Short Fiction (National Competition) category. And three of those awards came our way, for our little Kashmiri film, Tamaash, the awards for Best Cinematography (Sahir Raza), Best Sound (Yatin Dabhi, Manoj Sikka, and Abhishek Bhattathiri), and Best Film. It was incredible and overwhelming, and perhaps the best part about it was something I could not experience - my family could watch the program live on National TV back home!

At the dinner after the awards, Mark and his wife gracefully approached me to congratulate me for the film. "Now I can talk with you", he said. We had a long chat, about our film, other films in competition, about the brother-duo in Devanshu and me, about how the Coen brothers work, and about the three years his wife had spent in Bombay as a kid way back in the 60s. However, the biggest and most pleasant surprise for me was when he said, just after the first line, "So is it you who writes the blog, or is it your brother?"

I was staring at his face with wide eyes and a shocked smile, wondering how he got to read my blog. "After watching your film, one of the jury members looked you up on Google. And he shared your blog with us. We read your post on 30 things you learnt while making a short film." It is a post more than two years old. Even I didn't remember if it were exactly 30 lessons and hence was not sure if it was this blog he had read. But then, mentioning the name of the blog made it clear.

Am I exaggerating when I say that this was perhaps as memorable a moment for me as it was going up the stage and winning the awards? This blog has been a sacred space for me, to talk about my love affair with the movies, and until now I have not actively shared it with people. But to know that Mark Achbar and other jury members came here on this cyber space and went through some of my articles is humbling and inspiring at the same time.

Thank you, my dear blog! You have been the source of very special joys!

A 50-Min Video Discussing 'the Greatest Film Ever Made'

If you have watched 'Citizen Kane' and wonder why it is considered the greatest ever in the history of cinema, may be this 50-minute video may answer some of your questions.

I have not spent so much time studying any other film. Despite that I learnt some new things about it in this brief and well-made video. Honestly, the three-hour lecture I get to take on this film, as a part of the course for the BMM students, is one of my favourites. I don't know if it is possible to determine the greatest among all films. But as long as they say it is 'Citizen Kane', I don't mind!