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Tag: Mani Kaul

  • Iconic music films mark 100th FD Zone screening this week

    Iconic music films mark 100th FD Zone screening this week

    NEW DELHI:  Eminent film based on the country’s music legends will mark the 100th FD Zone screening. The films include Ravi Shankar which is based on the Bharat Ratna sitarist and is directed by Pramod Pati. Others include Amir Khan by SNS Sastry, and on Bhimsen Joshi directed by the eminent Gulzar. The screening will begin on 12 July at 4 pm.

     

    All the three films are remarkably individualistic in style. Pramod Pati’s film carries his zany energy, while Sastry’s film is a sublime meditation of the arts of music and film-making. Gulzar’s film is a feature-length documentary which is a sensory delight.

     

    FD Zone commenced two years earlier with a three-day festival of Mani Kaul’s films at the FD office in Mumbai. The programme of weekly screenings began on 14 July 2012 with SNS Sastry’s I am Twenty and Ashim Ahluwalia’s John and Jane.

     

    Since then, films have been shown every Saturday from the archives of the division aimed at creating a dialogue on diverse film-making practices, with emphasis on the non-fiction genre.

     

    The FD Zone screenings are free and open to all and even independent films have been screened along with films from the FD archives.

     

    Filmmakers visiting Mumbai have shared their films, fellow filmmakers have curated programmes and the audience has supported and enthusiastically participated in creating this space. The programme has been running once a month in seven other cities – Delhi, Bengaluru, Chennai, Kolkata, Madurai, Thrissur and Coimbatore, in partnership with local organisations.

     

    The films on Ravi Shankar and Amir Khan were made in 1970, while the film on Joshi was made in 1992.

  • MoMA to present two films of Mani Kaul

    MoMA to present two films of Mani Kaul

    MUMBAI: The New York-based Museum of the Modern Art (MoMA) will present two films of Mani Kaul namely Dhrupad and Siddheshwari between 24 to 26 August.

    “Kaul made about a dozen films, each one of them distinctive, original, and beautiful, and each touching upon an aspect of Indian daily life or culture,” read MoMA‘s website.

    Dhrupad, made in 1984, is a documentary that explores a form of Indian classical music dating from the 15th century, as performed by the Dagar Brothers. 

    The 1990-made Siddheshwari is an impressionistic biographical look at classical Indian singer Siddheshwari Devi whose voice was appreciated by both the maharajas and people alike.

    Alms for a Blind Horse (Anhey Ghorey Da Daan) directed by Gurvinder Singh (who was mentored by Mani Kaul) will be screened from 22 to 28 August, as part of the monthly exhibition ‘ContemporAsian‘.
     

  • Homage to Mani Kaul on his first death anniversary

    Homage to Mani Kaul on his first death anniversary

    NEW DELHI: A total of 13 shorts and features are to be screened in Delhi and Mumbai to pay homage to the late filmmaker Mani Kaul on his first death anniversary on 6 July.

    While the programme in Mumbai will run over two days, the one in Delhi will only have three films. The homage has been planned by the Films Division at their venues in the two metros.

    In Mumbai, renowned filmmaker Jahnu Barua will inaugurate the two-day festival and there will be a keynote address by Udayan Vajpeyi.

    Piyush Shah, Ustad Bahauddin Dagar, Ms Lalitha Krishna, Sharmistha Mohanty, and Siddharth Sinha will share their reminiscences about the master filmmaker. Films Division Director General V S Kundu will also speak on the occasion.

    In Delhi, Ashok Vajpeyi, Gattoo Kaul, Rita Kaul, Raman Chawla, and Gurpal Singh will pay their homage.

    The documentaries, Siddheshwari (1989); Arrival (1979) and Dhrupad, will be screened in both Delhi and Mumbai.

    Other films to be screened in Mumbai include the features Uski Roti (1970), Mati Manas (1985), and Duvidha (1975). The shorts and documentaries are: Homage to the Teacher (1967), Forms & Designs (1968), During and after Air-raid (1970), The Indian Woman (1975), The Nomad Puppeteer (1974), Chitrakathi (1978), and Before my Eyes (1989).

  • Rome Fest director Mueller to deliver Mani Kaul memorial lecture

    Rome Fest director Mueller to deliver Mani Kaul memorial lecture

    MUMBAI: Rome Festival director Marco Mueller will deliver the inaugural Mani Kaul Memorial Lecture at the 12th Osian‘s-Cinefan Film Festival. Mueller has earlier served as the Artistic Director of Venice International Film Festival for eight years.

    Kaul had been the Creative Director at Osian‘s since 2006 and was the director general of the 11th Osian‘s Cinefan Film Festival.

    Cinefan has instituted the Manu Kaul Memorial lecture from this year‘s edition.

    The festival will take place from 27 July to 5 August at Siri Fort Complex, Osianama and Blue Frog at the Qila Complex, New Delhi.

  • Mumbai fest to pay homage to Kaul, Husain and Shammi Kapoor

    Mumbai fest to pay homage to Kaul, Husain and Shammi Kapoor

    MUMBAI: The 13th Mumbai Film Festival, which will run between 13 to 20 October, will pay homage to named film personalities like Mani Kaul, MF Husain and Shammi Kapoor who passed away lately.


    Offering its tribute to Kaul, the Mumbai fest will screen his film Siddheshwari on 16 October. The film on the life of Hindustani singer Siddheshwari Devi is a national award-winning documentary.


    The following day, MF Husain’s film Through The Eyes of a Painter will be screened as a tribute to the painter-filmmaker. The short film, produced by the Films Division, was written and directed by Husain way back in 1967. It also won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.


    Then on 18 October, the festival will screen Vijay Anand’s Teesri Manzil as a tribute to veteran actor Shammi Kapoor.

  • Regional cinema is backbone of World Cinema: Supran Sen

    Regional cinema is backbone of World Cinema: Supran Sen

    NEW DELHI: “Regional cinema is the backbone of World cinema. It has reached new heights today. Apart from that, regional cinema contributes a lot to Film Festivals around the globe.”


    Inaugurating a one-day seminar on World Cinema via Regional Cinema in Jaipur, Film Federation of India Secretary General Supran Sen said 15 awards were bagged by Tamil cinema alone in the 2010 National Film Awards announced recently, apart from a large number of awards to other languages. Though regional cinema suffered from lack of huge budgets, it had the right kind of stories and ideas.


    The seminar was organised by the Jaipur International Film Festival and the Central Circuit Cine Association and was dedicated to filmmaker Mani Kaul who had grown up in Rajasthan, and music director Dan Singh, both of whom passed away recently.
    Around 70 film distributors/producers/directors and young filmmakers participated in the workshop.


    Sen said South Indian cinema was an excellent example of the achievements of regional cinema. Everyone is also aware of the popularity of Bhojpuri cinema. Super stars of Bollywood are now acting in Tamil, Bhojpuri and Kannada films. On the other hand, actresses from South India are ruling Bollywood, which also makes remakes of famous South Indian films. Thus, regional cinema makes contribution from the idea and story to the star cast in Bollywood.


    But several speakers expressed regret that Rajasthani cinema was not showing much progress, despite some incentives like tax free exhibition or subsidy of up to Rs 500,000 for filmmakers in the state.


    It was hoped that the state would increase the subsidy from Rs 500,00 which was very meagre.


    Lack of unity among filmmakers from the state was another reason given for the slow rise of Rajasthani cinema.


    Bollywood is also in many ways a regional cinema since it comprises films produced in a regional language.


    Films produced in foreign countries succeed because of special effects and other new techniques.


    Serials based on Rajasthan/Rajasthani culture were enormously popular and filmmakers could learn a lesson from this.


    There was a general complaint that filmmakers are asked to submit their films in VCD/DVD format to the state government for tax exemption. But this was risky before the release of a film since it could lead to piracy.
     

  • Noted filmmaker Mani Kaul passes away

    Noted filmmaker Mani Kaul passes away

    NEW DELHI: Noted filmmaker Mani Kaul, who was considered one of the pioneers of new Indian cinema that emerged in the late sixties and early seventies, died here early this morning after prolonged illness. He was 67.


    Kaul is survived by two sons and two daughters.


    A cancer patient, he breathed his last at 1 am at his home here after he was discharged from a hospital last night, his family said.


    Kaul, born in Jodhpur in Rajasthan to a Kashmiri family, was nephew of the well-known actor-director Mahesh Kaul.


    Mani Kaul began his career with “Uski Roti” in 1969 which won him the Filmfare Critics Award for best film.


    Ashad Ka Ek Din (1971), Duvidha (1973), Satab Se Uthata Admi (1976), Ghashiram Kotwal (1979), Dhrupad (1982), Mati Manas (1984), Siddheshwari (1989), Nazar (1989), Idiot (based on the masterpiece by Dostoeivsky) (1991) and Naukar Ki Kameez (1999) are among other films and many of them won awards. He also acted in the film ‘Saara Akash’ by Basu Chatterjee.


    A graduate from the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, Kaul got the National Film Award for Best documentary film “Siddheshwari” in 1989.


    Maker of a large number of documentaries, he is remembered for a film on Kashmir where he flew in a large balloon over some of the most beautiful spots of the valley and filmed them. The film only had music and no commentary. It was screened at the Mumbai International Film Festival for short films in a special section on Kashmir.


    Kaul also headed the Osian’s Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema in 2009.


    A versatile painter, Kaul was also a dhrupad singer. He was also a great teacher of the best in Indian cinema.


     
    Renowned filmmaker Mike Pandey, President of the Indian Documentary Producers Association which earlier this year presented a Lifetime Achievement award to Kaul, described Kaul as a filmmaker with rare sensitivity.


    After graduating from FTII in 1966, he along with K Hariharan and Saeed Mirza as well as some others set up the Yukt Film Cooperative in 1976.


    Kaul, like Kumar Shahani, succeeded in radically overhauling the relationship of image to form, of speech to narrative, with the objective of creating a “Purely cinematic object” that is above all visual and formal.


    In 1976, he was co-director, along with Saeed Mirza, K Hariharan and others–of a remarkable “avant-grade” film “Ghasiram Kotwal” in Marathi on the eternal theme of politicians conspiring to create corrupt and evil forces in order to use them against their enemies.The film has contemporary ramifications, as it explores metaphorically the “Emergency” period of the ‘70s.


    The next film was “Mati Manas” (Man of Clay) made in 1985 which was above the documentary form with its powerful and refined images of the legends which explain the development of ceramic art in the sub-continent through the ages.