NB: Here are two reviews of The Kashmir Files, with different interpretations. Readers are welcome to their own conclusions. Since this is a matter I have spoken and written about for many years, I attach below a selection of my posts beneath the reviews, without further comment. DS The Kashmir Files: Cinema As Testimony. Siddhartha Gigoo K-Files… Read More The Kashmir Files
The bhajan had a very familiar tune but the words and the off-key singing made it difficult to recognise at first. Then it came like a flash — the tune was that of “Allah, yeh ada kaisi hai in haseenon mein, roothe pal men na mane mahinon men,” a song from the forgettable 1968 Dharmendra-Sharmila… Read More Shobhit Mahajan: The ties that bind religion, popular culture
You do not fight Hollywood with critical argument. You fight Hollywood with Akira Kurosawa, Satyajit Ray, Abbas Kiarostami, Elia Suleiman, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Moufida Tlatli, Ousmane Sembène, Yasujirō Ozu, Guillermo del Toro, Mai Masri, ad gloriam. You do not battle misrepresentation. You signal, celebrate, and polish representations that are works of art…. The recent release… Read More Hamid Dabashi: Hollywood Orientalism is not about the Arab world. It's about the American world
Kiss the Ground Film Trailer (2020) The trailer for Kiss the Ground. Watch it and discover a simple solution for climate change. The full-length film: https://kissthegroundmovie.com Living Soil Film The Basics: Why is soil health important? Soil Solutions to Climate Problems – Narrated by Michael Pollan Why Soil Matters – Kiss the Ground Nature Is Speaking – Edward Norton is… Read More Kiss the Ground Film Trailer (2020) / What's the big deal about soil? / Living Soil Film
He was the star of my favourite film, Madhumati (1958). It was the first film shot in the Kumaon hills near our town of Nainital. For a few weeks, all of us in school strained our ears, above the teachers’ unending lessons, to hear the song, Aaja re pardesi, reverberating down in the valley, where… Read More Mrinal Pande: Goodbye Dilip Kumar, creator of our first dreams of love
The film, 1978, has been nominated for two awards at the Palm Springs Film Festival 2021, a qualifier for the Oscars, and is about a Christian-Goan rockstar who must decide if he can change with the times, as Pakistan transforms under a revolutionary fervour. It has been nominated for the Best of the Festival Award and Best… Read More Hamza Bangash's 1978 transports you to a time when Karachi truly was the city of lights
Barry Jenkins first heard the history of the Underground Railroad from a teacher when he was six or seven years old. The school lesson described the loose network of safe houses and abolitionists that helped enslaved people in the American south escape to free states in the north in the 19th century. Jenkins as a… Read More Barry Jenkins: ‘Maybe America has never been great’
90-year-old Colette Marin-Catherine confronts her past by visiting the German concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora where her brother was killed. As a young girl, she fought Hitler’s Nazis as a member of the French Resistance. For 74 years, she has refused to step foot in Germany, but that changes when a young history student named Lucie enters… Read More Colette: The French resistance fighter confronting fascism – Oscars 2021 Short Documentary Winner
NB: No, not politics, but nationalism, which Albert Einstein called ‘the measles of mankind‘. It is a tragedy that a talented person be abused in her own country because she refuses to kneel before this false god. This is not just a Chinese problem, its a lesson we all need to learn. DS The Academy Awards this year could… Read More This year's Oscars could have been a moment of pride for China. Then politics got in the way
Naseeruddin Shah, the actor, once claimed that “The roots may look lost but every big story in the Hindi film industry is from Shakespeare.” It might not be as simple as that but what Shah was pointing out was to the fact that there are many references to Shakespeare’s plays in Hindi film. Not just… Read More Shakespeare in Indian Cinema: Call for Papers
After the truth-shower 