13th July 2008: Roamal Poalnski's - The Pianist

The Pianist

A Film by Roman Polanski
Year 2002
Run time : 150 minutes
English with English subtitles.
13^th July 2008 : 5.45 pm
Ashwin Auditorium

Crafted without a whiff of melodrama, this motion picture takes a steady, unflinching look at the plight of Jews in Warsaw during the years when Poland was occupied by the Nazis. For director Roman Polanski, this represents his most effective film in nearly three decades. Not since 1974's Chinatown has Polanski reached such dramatic heights.

There are no concentration camp scenes. Instead of taking us into the depths of Auschwitz, the film leaves us on the streets of Warsaw, where life and death was as uncertain a prospect as it was in the camps. In addition, Polanski does not flinch from showing the naked horrors perpetrated by Nazis on Jews. There is no attempt to sugar-coat this bitter pill – we see frequent gunshots to the head, torture, and the effects of starvation. The tone and style of the film are documentary-like - Polanski observes from a detached perspective, detailing atrocities without manipulating his audience. The result is bleak and powerful, and may overcome more sensitive viewers.

The Pianist opens in 1939 Warsaw, shortly after Poland's defeat to Germany. The film's protagonist is celebrated Jewish pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody), who, along with his family, is forced to watch as the restrictions against Jews become increasingly more odious. Initially, Jews are forbidden from eating in certain establishments, walking in public parks, or sitting on public benches. Soon, they must wear distinguishing armbands, bow to Nazis passed in the streets, and walk in the gutters. Eventually, all Jews in Warsaw – approximately 500,000 –are moved into a ghetto, where whole families are crammed into single small rooms. After the Nazis begin implementing their "Final Solution," most of the Jews in Warsaw are shipped to the concentration camps to be exterminated.

Recognizing that The Pianist is a true story adds another layer to its impact. However, it is Polanski's mastery that makes this movie unforgettable. While The Pianist has a strong, clear narrative, the director uses music and images to emblazon Wladyslaw's struggle on our memories.

Roman Polanski

Roman Raymond Polanski (born August 18, 1933) is an Academy Award-winning film director, writer, actor and producer. After beginning his career in Poland, Polanski became a celebrated arthouse filmmaker, and Hollywood director of such films as Rosemary's Baby (1968) and Chinatown (1974). Polanski is considered one of the world’s great film directors.

1939, Poland was invaded and occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union, in accordance with the Nazi-Soviet Pact. The Polański family was a target of Nazi persecution and forced into the Kraków Ghetto, along with thousands of other Polish Jews. Roman Polański's mother was subsequently gassed in the Auschwitz concentration camp. His father barely survived the Austrian concentration camp Mauthausen-Gusen. Polański himself escaped the Kraków Ghetto.

He was educated at the Polish film school in Łódź, Poland, from which he graduated in 1959. Polański speaks six languages: Native Polish language, Russian, English, French, Spanish, and Italian.

He is also known for his tumultuous personal life. He lived in German-occupied Poland during WWII and in 1969, his pregnant wife, Sharon Tate, was murdered by the Manson Family. In 1977 he was involved in an American sex scandal, he fled to France where he has lived a rather reclusive life with his wife the gifted and skilled actress Emmanuelle Seigner and their two children.

He has continued to direct films from Europe, including Frantic (1988), Death and the Maiden (1994), The Ninth Gate, the Academy Award-winning and Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or-winning The Pianist (2002), and Oliver Twist (2005).

Polanski is admired by many other filmmakers all over the world for his genius as a director.

6th July 2008 : Shyam Benegal's Nishant

Nishant

A film by Shyam Benegal
Original Screenplay : Vijay Tendulkar
Year : 1975
Run time :140 minutes
Hindi with English sub titles
6th July 2008 ; 5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium

Contemporary Indian filmmake Shyam Benegal’s second film, NIshant (1975)explores the corrupt world of landowners and local bureaucracy in India on the cusp of independence.

Shyam Benegal has a well-deserved reputation for making hard hitting social dramas which tell true Indian stories in a realistic manner. He seems to be ever pre-occupied in supporting the forces which are taking India from tradition to modernity, from a deeply conservative and rigidly hierarchical society to a more open, democratic and egalitarian one. In Nishant the oppressed revolt openly against the long reign of terror let loose by a family of landlords. Significantly, the revolt does not come from the land, it is brought about by the middle class - the school teacher and the priest. The plot is brutal and compelling which reveals how people's lives play out in the many parts of the world where civilization is still primitive and brutal. Nishant was nominated for Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival (1976).

Shabana gives a rangy and volatile performance There is a certain raw tension in Nishant, an anticipatory mood that is compelling even when nothing is happening. Shyam Benegal's dusty, dusky visuals, along with many silent or near-silent scenes, seem to enhance the tension with their spareness. And it is a great treat to see so many giants of parallel cinema displayed in their unpolished youth - Shabana, Smita, Naseer, Kulbushan, and Mohan Agashe and Anant Nag (as the zamindar's other two brothers) are all fresh out of school; none of them had more than two films' experience prior to Nishant, and even Amrish Puri had only played half a dozen roles.

The film won the 1977 National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi, and was invited to Cannes Film Festival, the London Film Festival 1976, Melbourne Film Festival 1977, and the Chicago Film Festival 1977, where it was awarded Golden Plaque.

(Thanks to Film Geek http://www.filmigeek.net/2006/10/nishant.html )

Shyam Benegal

Contemporary Indian filmmaker Shyam Benegal has been an important figure in the new wave of Indian directors. Benegal originated what has come to be called "middle cinema". He was initially involved in the advertising industry and produced over 900 advertisements before his interest turned to films.

Shyam Benegal was born on 14 December 1934 at Aliwal, Hyderabad, British India (now Andhra Pradesh, India). The son of a still photographer and one of 10 children, Benegal's love affair with motion pictures began when he made his first home-movie using a hand-cranked camera at age 12. He is nephew of the famous Indian Actor Director Guru Dutt.

As a young man, he went on to found a film society and get involved in acting while studying at Osmania University where he earned an MA in economics. After graduating, Benegal found a job as a copywriter at a large ad agency in Bombay. Soon he was promoted to writing scripts and directing advertising shorts and commercials. He remained there for over a decade.

In 1969 he received a special fellowship to study operations of the Children's Television Workshop in New York. Later he did a brief stint as a TV producer in Boston.

Since then he has become a popular director in India, noted for creating films sensitive to the role of women in Indian societies. His films have also gained international recognition and acclaim.

His film directorial debut was Gher Betha Ganga in 1962. Benegal shot to fame with Ankur 1973, which introduced Shabana Azmi, who also starred in Nishant 1975. The success that New India Cinema enjoyed in the 1970s and early 1980s could largely be attributed to Shyam Benegal's quartet Ankur (1973), Nishant (1975), Manthan (1976) and Bhumika (1977), which were artistically superior yet commercially viable films. Tapping fresh talent mainly from the FTII and NSD, Benegal has made several sensitive and stimulating films.

He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1976 and the Padma Bhushan in 1991. On 8th August 2007, he was awarded the highest award in Indian cinema for lifetime achievement, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2005. He is only director to have won the National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Hindi five times.

22nd June 2008 ; Screening of Casablanca

Casablanca
A Film by Michael Curtiz
Year : 1942
Country : USA
Run time :102 minutes
English with English sub titles
22nd June 2008 ;5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium

Amazing cast, memorable dialogue, unforgettable story.

Against the electric background of a sleek cafe in a North African port, through which swirls a backwash of connivers, crooks and fleeing European refugees, the Warner Brothers are telling a rich, suave, exciting and moving tale in their film, "Casablanca,"

The story, as would be natural, has its devious convolutions of plot. But mainly it tells of a tough fellow named Rick who runs a Casablanca cafe and of what happens when there shows up in his joint one night a girl whom he had previously loved in Paris in company with a fugitive Czech patriot. The Nazis are tailing the young Czech; the Vichy officials offer only brief refuge—and Rick holds the only two sure passports which will guarantee his and the girl's escape. But Rick loves the girl very dearly, she is now married to this other man—and whenever his black pianist sits there in the dark and sings "As Time Goes By" that old, irresistible feeling consumes him in a choking, maddening wave.

Don't worry; we won't tell you how it all comes out. That would be rankest sabotage. But we will tell you that the urbane detail and the crackling dialogue which has been packed into this film by the scriptwriters, the Epstein brothers and Howard Koch, is of the best. We will tell you that Michael Curtiz has directed for slow suspense and that his camera is always conveying grim tension and uncertainty.

Download the original CASABLANCA screenplay by clicking here.

The performances of the actors are all of the first order, especially those of Mr. Bogart and Miss Bergman in the leading roles. Mr. Bogart is, as usual, the cool, cynical, efficient and super-wise guy who operates his business strictly for profit but has a core of sentiment and idealism inside. Conflict becomes his inner character, and he handles it credibly. Miss Bergman is surpassingly lovely, crisp and natural as the girl and lights the romantic passages with a warm and genuine glow.

In short, we will say that "Casablanca" is one of the most exciting and trenchant films.

Michael Curtiz

(December 24, 1886 - April 10, 1962)

Michael Curtiz was one of Hollywood's most prolific and colorful directors. Born to a well-to-do Jewish family in Budapest, he ran away from home at age 17 to join a circus, then trained for an acting career at the Royal Academy for Theater and Art. He worked as a leading man at the Hungarian Theatre before directing stage plays and then films.

His first cinematic effort was Az Utolsó Bohém (1912), which was also the first feature-length film ever made in Hungary. Curtiz soon moved on to the more progressive Danish film industry, returning to his homeland in 1914 and serving a year in the Austro-Hungarian infantry before resuming his film career.He directed 21 European pictures in a seven-year period, including the epic Sodom and Gomorrah (1923).

In 1926, Curtiz was brought to Hollywood by Warner Bros. He had a lengthy and prolific Hollywood career, with directing credits on over 100 films in many film genres..Prime examples of his work in the 1940s are The Sea Wolf (1941), Casablanca (1942) and Mildred Pierce (1945). Michael Curtiz died at the age of 73 and was almost working till the last days of his life.

15th June 2008 ; Screening of Luis Bunuel's The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

"In a world as badly made as ours,
there is only one road -- rebellion."
. . . LUIS BUNUEL

The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie

A Film by Luis Bunuel
Country : France
Year : 1972
French / Spanish with English subtitles
Run time : 102 minutes

All movies toy with us, but the best ones have the nerve to admit it. Most movies pretend their stories are real and that we must take them seriously. Comedies are allowed to break the rules. Most of the films of Luis Bunuel are comedies in one way or another, but he doesn't go for gags and punch lines; his comedy is more like a dig in the ribs, sly and painful.

"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" (1972) is about people who are trapped on the other side of the mirror: They constantly arrive for dinner and sometimes even sit down for it, but are never able to eat. They arrive on the wrong night, or are alarmed to find the corpse of the restaurant owner in the next room, or are interrupted by military maneuvers.

Dinner is the central social ritual of the middle classes, a way of displaying wealth and good manners. It also offers the convenience of something to do (eat) and something to talk about (the food), and that is a great relief, since so many of the bourgeoisie have nothing much to talk about, and there are a great many things they hope will not be mentioned.

The joke in "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" is the way Bunuel interrupts the meals with the secrets that lurk beneath the surface of his decaying European aristocracy: witlessness, adultery, drug dealing, cheating, military coups, perversion and the paralysis of boredom. His central characters are politicians, the military and the rich, but in a generous mood he throws in a supporting character to make fun of the church.

The movie is broken into self-contained sequences, showing the bland surface of polite society and the lusts that lurk beneath.

"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" was Bunuel's most successful film; it made more money even than his famous "Belle de Jour" (1967), won the Oscar as best foreign film and was named the year's best by the National Society of Film Critics. It was released in a year when social unrest was at its height, the Vietnam War was in full flower, and the upper middle class was a fashionable target of disdain. How different to see it again in the 2000s, when affluence is once again praised and envied.

Luis Buñuel

Painting by Salvador Dali
22 February 1900, Spain .- 29 July 1983 Mexico

The father of cinematic Surrealism and
one of the most original directors in the
history of the film medium,

“ I have a soft spot for secret passageways, bookshelves that open into silence, staircases that go down into a void, and hidden safes. I even have one myself, but I won't tell you where. At the other end of the spectrum are statistics which I hate with all my heart. “

Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education (which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive behavior). Bnuel subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the university there, where his close friends included surrealist painter Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca After moving to Paris, Buñuel did a variety of film-related odd jobs in Paris, including working as an assistant to director Jean Epstein.

With financial assistance from his mother and creative assistance from Dalí, he made his first film, the 17-minute Un chien andalou in 1929, and immediately catapulted himself into film history thanks to its shocking imagery (much of which - like the sliced eyeball at the beginning - still packs a punch even today). It made a deep impression on the Surrealist Group, who welcomed Buñuel into their ranks. The following year, sponsored by wealthy art patrons, he made his first feature, the scabrous witty and violent Âge d'or, L' (1930), which mercilessly attacked the church and the middle classes, themes that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career.

After the Spanish Civil War he emigrated to the US where he worked for the Museum of Modern Art and as a film dubber for Warner Bros. Moving to Mexico in the late 1940s, he teamed up with producer Óscar Dancigers and after a couple of unmemorable efforts shot back to international attention with the lacerating study of Mexican street urchins, Olvidados, Los (1950), which won him the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival.

In 1961, General Franco, anxious to be seen to be supporting Spanish culture invited Buñuel back to his native country -and Bunuel promptly paid back by making Viridiana (1961), which was banned in Spain on the grounds of blasphemy, though it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

This inaugurated Buñuel's last great period when, he made seven extraordinary late masterpieces, starting with Journal d'une femme de chambre, Le (1964). The films showed that even in old age Buñuel had lost none of his youthful vigour. After saying that every one of his films from Belle de jour (1967) onwards would be his last, he finally kept his promise with Cet obscur objet du désir (1977), after which he wrote a memorable (if factually dubious) autobiography, in which he said he'd be happy to burn all the prints of all his films -a classic Surrealist gesture if ever there was one.

8th June 2008 ; Screening of SHINE

A true story of the mystery
of music and the miracle of love

SHINE

A Film by
Scot Hicks
Year : 1996
Country : Australia
English with English sub titles
Run time : 105 minutes
8^th June 2008 ; 5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium

Shine is a deceptively simple title for an amazingly powerful motion picture based on the true life story of Australian pianist David Helfgott.

Long before its American theatrical debut, Shine had already attained the status as one of 1996's few "must see" films. At Sundance, where it was among the hottest properties, the war for distribution rights exploded into a public confrontation. The movie has also earned 9 Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards.

Shine has its roots in 1986, when director Scott Hicks read a newspaper story about David Helfgott, a pianist who performed a flawless classical repertoire at a Perth restaurant. Hicks' interest was piqued, and he arranged to see Helfgott in concert. For the better part of the next year, he worked to earn the man's trust with the goal of presenting his story in a motion picture. That odyssey, which is admittedly fictionalized to some degree in Jan Sardi's wonderful screenplay became Shine, one of 1996's most stirring and inspirational tales.

As "Shine" begins, the adult David Helfgott (Geoffrey Rush) appears pitiably, trying to come in out of the rain. Clearly damaged somehow, David fidgets and chatters nervously, keeping his eyes half-shut, clutching too eagerly at the people he sees. He repeats words frenetically and chuckles oddly at words that really aren't funny. "Ridiculous tragedy" is one of the phrases he mutters.

Love can have many faces, and Shine shows two of the most extreme. The first is David’s father Peter's obsessive, domineering love. Hicks's graceful exposition explores the pathos in David's relationship with his father.. The film watches helplessly while this father's love and pride destroy his son. The other face of love is the healing, undemanding one, as embodied by a middle-aged Gillian (Lynn Redgrave). She offers her strength and understanding to David, helping him to rebuild his life.

The film's final scene directly contrasts Peter and Gillian's approaches, as David attempts to bring closure to one of the great, unresolved issues of his life.

SCOTT HICKS

SCOTT HICKS was propelled to the forefront of international filmmakers in 1996, following the release of his film Shine. Its triumphant premiere at the Sundance Film Festival was just the beginning of world-wide box office success and numerous honors, including seven Academy Award nominations.

Even before Shine, however, Hicks had made his mark as a documentarian. He won an Emmy in 1994 for Submarines: Sharks of Steel and a coveted Peabody Award in 1989 for The Great Wall of Iron.

The progeny of adventurous parents, Hicks was born in Uganda and lived in Kenya, just outside Nairobi, until the age of ten. His family then moved, first to England and, when he was 14, on to Adelaide, Australia.

Hicks entered Flinders University to major in English and Drama and cinema studies were part of the curriculum. Instantly attracted to the medium, he threw himself headlong into the study of great directors, film movements and filmmaking techniques.

By the mid-1980s, he had managed to make a couple of low budget features, one for the South Australian Film Corporation. In 1988, he came to Los Angeles for the American Film Market with his children's movie, Sebastian and the Sparrow. Hicks began to make non-fiction films. But Hicks was not able to rest on the laurels of his documentary achievements because he was passionately involved with the development of the film Shine, inspired by the life of pianist David Helfgott.

Hicks continues to live in Adelaide with his wife and collaborator, Kerry Heysen, and their two sons. He has projects in varying stages of development at several studios.

1st June 2008; Screening of Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood

In the entire history of cinema there has never been a director,
who has made such a dramatic stand for the human spirit
as did Andrei Tarkovsky.

Ivan's Childhoood
A film by Andrei Takovsky
Country : Soviet Union
Year 1962
Russian with English sub titles
Run time : 95 minutes
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium
1^st June 2008 ; 5.45 pm

When I discovered the first films of Tarkovsky, it was a miracle. I suddenly found myself before a door to which I had never had the key.a room which I had always wished to penetrate and wherein he felt perfectly at ease. Someone was able to express what I had always wished to say without knowing how. For me Tarkovsky is the greatest filmmaker
- Ingmar Bergman

Ivan's Childhood was Tarkovsky's first feature film and won him critical acclaim and made him known internationally. It won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival in 1962 and the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 1962.

Perhaps no other filmmaker can be said to have equalled the breathtaking beauty and cinematic genius of the opening sequence of Ivan's childhood, the movements of the elaborate crane shots tracing the director's inimitable signature, an example of his matchless skill at 'sculpting in time'.

On an idyllic summer day, a 12 year old boy named Ivan (Nikolai Burlyayev) ventures into the woods and spots a cuckoo. He begins to levitate above the forest, rejoins his mother (Irma Raush Tarkovskaya), and begins to share his discovery. Then the peaceful reunion between mother and son is truncated by Ivan's rude awakening to the sound of mortar firing. Suddenly, it is evening, and a hungry, weary Ivan awakens in the attic of an empty windmill. The surreal episode proves to be an intangible dream. Resuming his reconnaissance mission, Ivan then crosses a treacherous swamp amidst enemy fire. Unable to rendezvous with his contact, Corporal Katasonych (Stepan Krylov), Ivan arrives at an alternate Russian bunker, where his credentials are immediately questioned by the ranking officer, Lieutenant Galtsev (Yevgeni Zharikov). Despite his skepticism, Galtsev calls Ivan's superior, Colonel Gryaznov (Nikolai Grinko), who confirms his identity, dispatches Captain Kholin (Valentin Zubkov) to bring him back to headquarters. Gryaznov has taken an interest in the welfare of the young orphan, and has decided to enroll him in a military academy, reasoning that war has no place for children. Ivan refuses to leave, and argues that his age and stealth make him an ideal scout for their missions. Unable to persuade his superiors, Ivan runs away from the barracks, only to find a ravaged, desolate wasteland outside its walls. With nowhere left to turn, he returns with his superiors back to camp. However, despite the officers' reluctance, Ivan is enlisted for a final mission as they prepare for another covert operation.

Andrei Tarkovsky presents an austere, bleak and haunting portrait of lost innocence in Ivan's Childhood. As regards the immediate influence of Ivan's Childhood, or its importance, one need look no further than the words of the great Georgian filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov: "I did not know how to do anything and I would not have done anything if there had not been Ivan's Childhood." Kieslowski made similar pronouncements and we can see how all three directors shared an obsession with the elements and with injecting objects with a magical epiphanic quality - preoccupations which can be traced back to Tarkovsky's debut feature.

Andrei Tarkovsky

April 4, 1932 - December 29, 1986

"Art is born and takes hold wherever there is a timeless and insatiable longing for the spiritual."
- Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Tarkovsky is the most influential Soviet filmmaker of the post-war era, and one of the world's most renowned cinematic geniuses. He created spiritual, existential films of incredible beauty, repeatedly returning to themes of memory, dreams and childhood . Although Tarkovksy directed only seven feature films during his twenty-year active career, he is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of the late 20th century . His films, such as Stalker , Solaris, Mirror, Nostalghia and The Sacrifice make use of long, unedited shots and wide angles in uncompromisingly formalistic statements that are as striking today as they were when they were first made.

Tarkovsky was born in the village of Zavrazhye in Kostroma Province in Soviet Union as the child of the poet and translator Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky and Maria Ivanova Vishnyakova, a graduate of the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute. After high school graduation, from 1951 to 1952, Tarkovsky studied Arabic at the Oriental Institute in Moscow, In 1954 Tarkovsky joined the State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK) to the film-directing-program. He was in the same class as Irma Raush, whom he married in April 1957.

Tarkovsky also worked extensively as a screenwriter, film editor, film theorist and theater director. He directed most of his films in the Soviet Union, with the exception of his last two films which were produced in Italy and Sweden. His films are characterized by Christian spirituality and metaphysical themes, extremely long takes, lack of conventional dramatic structure and plot, and memorable images of exceptional beauty.

Each of Tarkovsky's films has its own dreamlike inner coherence, but a number of images remain constant from film to film, acting as unifying links and providing clues to the cinematic language Tarkovsky created.

Poetic Reasoning - Whereas Eisenstein had utilized the theories of montage to create artificial links between images where there were none, Tarkovsky applied laws of "poetic reasoning" to the creation of his films from Andrei Rublev onward. Tarkovsky felt his task was to unveil relationships between images and events as created and set into motion by God, rather than imposing relationships upon filmgoers in order to manipulate them into a prescribed point of view. Tarkovsky was especially drawn to the internal logic of Japanese haiku, wherein three very different images are combined to form a whole much larger than the parts.

Tarkovsky died on December 29, 1986 in Paris at age 54. He was buried on January 3, 1987 in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery in Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois in France. The inscription on his grave stone, which was created by the Russian sculptor Ernst Neizvestny, reads ‘ To the man who saw the Angel ’.

25th May 2008; Screening of Govind Nihalani's Ardh Satya

Before entering the circle of enemies
who was I and how i was
I didn't remember it

After entering it there was only dangerous nearness
between me and the circle and i wasn't aware of it.

After getting out of the circle
I would become free for sure,
but there wont be a change in the structure itself

whether i die or kill
This will never be decided

- Dilip Chitre's poem in Ardh Satya

Ardh Satya
A Film by Govind Nihalani
Year 1983
Hindi with English sub titles
25^th May 2008 ; 5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium

If there is one Indian movie that still stands proud, its head held high, defiant and angst-ridden on the long and eventful cinemascape of the nation, it has to be Ardh Satya.

The mother of all cop movies ever produced in India, this 130-minute movie helped establish, with one master stroke, the brilliance of Govind Nihalani's capability to fuse elements of art into commercial mainstream fare and to secure and shape the careers of Om Puri and Sadashiv Amrapurkar.

Ardh Satya or 'Half Truth' tells the story of Ananth Welankar (Om Puri), who is thrust into the Indian Police Force against his will by his domineering father (Amrish Puri, who plays his career-best role of Mogambo). The story centres around the rising angst he feels inside owing to his principled heart being stifled on a daily basis at the workplace, choked in the vice-like grip of the police-politician nexus, and the increasing impotence he feels with the events that shape his career amidst this degrading chaos.

Smitha Patil plays Jyotsna, a college lecturer and Om Puri's lady friend, whom he considers his island of calm amidst the raging hurricane inside his head. The movie is the ultimate tribute to the fiery dynamics between Om Puri and Amrish Puri as the explosive son and the domineering father.

It happened to be the unwitting second classic in the trilogy of cop sagas that Govind Nihalani explored, starting with Aakrosh in 1980, Ardh Satya in 1982 and Drohkaal in 1994.

Vijay Tendulkar wrote the screenplay based on the Marathi short story Surya by D.A. Panavalkar. Ardha Satya won the 1983 Filmare Awards for Best Movie, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor for Sadashiv Amrapurkar, Best Screenplay and Best Story. In 1984, Om Puri got the National Best Actor Award for his leading role in the movie.

The poems of Dilip Chitre, that in the movie are the work of Om Puri's lady friend Jyothsna that help the disturbed man find his identity and final solace, run through the movie as the central theme. They are literary gems that don't appear too often in the commercial staple fare of Indian cinema.

Govind Nihalani

Govind Nihalani is one of Indian cinema's foremost directors.He was born on 19 August 1940 in Karachi (now in Pakistan) and his family migrated to India during the partition of 1947. He started out as a cinematographer, graduating in cinematography from the Shree Jaya Chamrajendra polytechnic in Bangalore in 1962. He was associated with all the earlier films of Shyam Benegal and with the cinematography of Richard Attenborough's Oscar-winning epic Gandhi. Nihalanti and Benegal are well known for the socially relevant films they have directed.

An interview with Nihalani - Click here

His first directorial venture was Aakrosh starring Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, the late Smita Patil and the late Amrish Puri. This was based on a real story which was converted into a filmscript by the eminent Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar and it made a huge impact on audiences all over India. It shared the Golden Peacock for best film at the International Film Festival of India held in New Delhi in 1981. His film Ardh Satya, based on a story by Dilip Chitre, is still remembered by film lovers. It changed forever the way in which Indian cinema portrayed the police and it exposed in stark detail the police-politician-criminal nexus.

With Aakrosh (1980), Nihalani joined the ranks of serious filmmakers in India. Since then he has not looked back. After directing more than a dozen thought-provoking features, he is known as a director who portrays the grim social reality without any compromises.

18th May 2008 ; Documentay : Winged Migration

Arguably the most beautiful documentary ever made

Winged Migration

Documentary on the migratory patterns of birds,
shot over the course of three years on all seven continents.

A Film By : Jacques Perrin
Year :2001
Run Time 98 minutes
18th May 2008 : 5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital auditorium

"Winged Migration.", which is awesome to regard, wants to allow us to look, simply look, at birds--and that goal it achieves magnificently. The cameras of Jacques Perrin fly with migratory birds: geese, storks, cranes. The film begins with spring in North America and the migration to the Arctic; the flight is a community event for each species. Once in the Arctic, it's family time: courtship, nests, eggs, fledglings, and first flight. Chicks must soon fly south. Bad weather, hunters, and pollution take their toll. Then, the cameras go south of the Equator; Antarctica is the summer destination. The search for food, good weather, and a place to hatch young takes this annual cycle of stamina across continents and oceans. There is a spare narration and a few titles; for the most part it's visual, a bird's eye view.

You see the world beneath as they see it — stunningly spacious, gorgeously hued and sometimes dangerous, for we are with the birds as they skim beneath the bridges of the Seine or past New York City's skyscrapers. The picture is just as good when the cameras come down to Earth, studying the way the birds breed, feed and socialize. Knowing that its crews exposed 590 miles of film to make a relatively short (89 min.) film, we have to marvel at the patience and fortitude of its 450 makers, shooting in 40 countries.

As de Tregomain puts it, this very sophisticated film is "taking cinema back to the earliest moments as a science, when the image being filmed was less tricky than how the camera was going to capture it." There's a purity in this effort. It's enough to give the serious moviegoer heart in this impure season.

Jacques Perrin

Jacques Perrin ( Born 1941 in Paris) is a French actor and filmmaker. He is occasionally credited as Jacques Simonet. Simonet was his father's name and Perrin his mother's.His father, Alexandre Simonet, was a theatre director. Perrin was trained as an actor at the Conservatoire National d'Art Dramatique de Paris.

He was given his first juvenile film roles by Italian director Valerio Zurlini. He also gave over 400 performances of L'Année du bac on the Paris stage.He played opposite Claudia Cardinale in the romantic comedy La Ragazza con la valigia and played the adult Salvatore in the international hit Cinema Paradiso. He won two Best Actor awards at the Venice Film Festival in 1966 for the Italian film Almost a Man and the Spanish film The Search.

At 27, he created a studio and filmed the internationally acclaimed Z, which was directed by Costa Gavras . Perrin was both co-producer and actor in the film. He collaborated with Costa Gavras again in État de Siège (State of Siege) in 1973 and Section spéciale in 1975. All of these films had political themes, and Perrin continued this trend with a documentary on the Algerian uprising (La guerre d'Algérie) and a film on the Chilean presidency of Salvador Allende (La Spirale).

Perrin produced another Oscar-winning film in 1976: La Victoire en Chantant (Black and White in Color) by legendary director Jean-Jacques Annaud. In 1977, he embarked on Le Désert des Tartares, again starring Trintignant.

His recent successes have been the animal films Microcosmos and Le Peuple Migrateur (Winged Migration), which were both filmed by his studio Galatée Films.

11th May 2008 ; Screening of Central Station

Central Station
Central Do Brasil (Drama -- Brazilian - French)
A Film By Walter Salles
Year 1998
Country : Brazil
Portuguese with English sub tiles

11t May 2008 ; 5.45 pm
Ashwin Hospital Auditorium

In Walter Salles' "Central Station," a hit at Sundance and the winner of top honors at this year's Berlin Film Festival, a cynical, joyless woman crosses paths with a lonely young boy.Beautifully observed and featuring a bravura performance by the Brazilian actress Fernanda Montenegro, it gracefully watches these oddly paired characters develop a fractious bond that winds up profoundly changing both of them.

"Central Station" slowly settles into the pleasures of a road movie, in which we see modern Brazil through the eyes of the characters: the long-haul trucks that are the lifeline of commerce, the sprawling new housing developments, the hybrid religious ceremonies, the blend of old ways and the 20th century. Whether they find the father is not really the point; the film is about their journey and relationship.

The movie's success rests largely on the shoulders of Fernanda Montenegro, an actress who successfully defeats any temptation to allow sentimentality to wreck her relationship with the child. She understands that the film is not really about the boy's search for his father, but about her own reawakening. This process is measured out so carefully that we don't even notice the point at which she crosses over into a gentler person.

The boy, 10-year-old Vincius de Oliveira, was discovered by the director in an airport, shining shoes. He asked Walter Salles for the price of a sandwich, and Salles, who had been trying for months to cast this role, looked at him thoughtfully and saw young Josue. He plays Josue so well, the performance is transparent.

On a precise but restrained symbolic level, "Central Station" speaks in a cautiously hopeful manner about the possibilities for Brazil's future, suggesting that the deep scars left by the social ills of the recent past might somehow be survived and surmounted by a creative union of the old and the new Brazils.

Walter Salles

Walter Moreira Salles Jr. (born April 12, 1956, Rio de Janeiro) is a Brazilian filmmaker and film producer of international prominence. He is the son of Walter Moreira Salles, a Brazilian banker and ambassador, and the brother of João Moreira Salles, also a filmmaker.

Salles attended the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.Salles's first notable film was Terra Estrangeira (Foreign Land), released in Brazil in 1995. In 1998 he released Central do Brasil (Central Station) to widespread international acclaim. His next , Abril Despedaçado (Behind the Sun), starring Rodrigo Santoro, was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Golden Globes. Both films were produced by veteran Arthur Cohn and had worldwide distribution.

His biggest international success has been Diarios de Motocicleta (The Motorcycle Diaries), a 2004 film about the life of young Ernesto Guevara, who later became known as Che Guevara. It was Salles's first foray as director of a film in a language other than his native Portuguese (Spanish, in this case) and quickly became a box-office hit in Latin America and Europe.

In 2005, Salles released his first English-language feature film, which is also his first Hollywood film, Dark Water. In 2003, Salles was voted one of the 40 Best Directors in the World by The Guardian.