When the doyen of Indian documentary filmmaking, Anand Patwardhan, who has been making films for half a century now, says casually that he has not "evolved", it can be quite a shocker.
For someone, who has made internationally acclaimed documentaries including 'Bombay: Our City' ('Hamara Shahar') (1985), 'In Memory of Friends' (1990), 'In the Name of God'바카라 웹사이트('Ram ke Nam') (1992),바카라 웹사이트'Father, Son, and Holy War'바카라 웹사이트(1995), 'A Narmada Diary'바카라 웹사이트(1995), 'War and Peace' (2002), 'Jai Bhim Comrade' (2011), and 'Reason',바카라 웹사이트with virtually all his films바카라 웹사이트facing censorship, and eventually being cleared after legal action, it can be said that they are relevant even today.
“I feel like I바카라 웹사이트have바카라 웹사이트been saying the same thing for 50 years. I바카라 웹사이트have바카라 웹사이트made films on different issues but they바카라 웹사이트are바카라 웹사이트interrelated and unfortunately바카라 웹사이트do바카라 웹사이트go out of date. The fact that바카라 웹사이트they are바카라 웹사이트still바카라 웹사이트relevant바카라 웹사이트can be바카라 웹사이트depressing, as the same means that things around have not changed much. Half my life I was fighting the Congress with my art, now it is BJP,” he tells IANS.
While several of his films have been screened once on Doordarshan after court orders, and have remained underutilized, and not entered the mainstream, the filmmaker asserts that there have been several instances where people after watching them have given him feedback he never expected them to. “Once, a man who was part of the Babri Masjid demolition told me that seeing ‘Ram Ke Naam’ ‘woke’ him up,” says Patwardhan, whose cinema deals with바카라 웹사이트religious fundamentalism, sectarianism, casteism, nuclear nationalism, and unsustainable development.바카라 웹사이트
Patwardhan was in Dharmshala recently for the Dharamshala International Film Festival (DIFF) where his latest ‘The World is Family’ was screened. In his most personal film to date, the filmmaker looks at his family through interviews with family members, and old albums and captures the family라이브 바카라 links with the Indian freedom movement and how they formed close ties with Mahatma Gandhi, B.R. Ambedkar, and other important figures of the independence movement.
It may not be an overtly political film,바카라 웹사이트which he started shooting in the late 1990s, but바카라 웹사이트is definitely바카라 웹사이트an act of recovering memory at a time when history is being rewritten and looks at his contemporary concerns. “Frankly,바카라 웹사이트I was just recording my parents because I did not want to lose them, they were getting old.바카라 웹사이트After they passed바카라 웹사이트on, it was during the바카라 웹사이트Pandemic that바카라 웹사이트I started editing the home videos, and realized that they must be shared. While the film looks at the past, it also offers a bridge to look바카라 웹사이트at the future divorced from hate politics,” he says about 'The World is Family' that premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival바카라 웹사이트this year, his fourth film to be screened there.
As the conversation veers towards OTT platforms and the initial euphoria that they would welcome diverse content, Patwardhan asserts that they do not even touch his movies, and even the most popular free video streaming platform puts바카라 웹사이트restrictions on his content.
“For certain kinds of filmmaking, there are funding and pitching sessions,바카라 웹사이트and they바카라 웹사이트do바카라 웹사이트get foreign바카라 웹사이트television channels to바카라 웹사이트put out their films.바카라 웹사이트I have not done that바카라 웹사이트as I want my films to be made바카라 웹사이트in India.바카라 웹사이트Sadly, while there are movies made through international바카라 웹사이트financers,바카라 웹사이트there is no mechanism to support indigenously made films. But then바카라 웹사이트people are making films without money too, so there is hope,” concludes the filmmaker.
