5: Exploring Filmosophy with Amrit Gangar

Published: Jan. 31, 2018, 12:30 a.m.

Amrit Gangar is an Indian film scholar, historian, critic, curator and writer. He worked for the National Museum of Indian Cinema set up by the Government of Mumbai. Amrit Gangar has been working in the field of cinema in various capacities for over three decades. He has been part of production and creative teams of numerous feature, documentary, short films and video installations by artists from Europe and Scandinavia. For the past several years, he has been engaged with his new theoretical-philosophical concept Cinema of Prayoga or Cinema Prayoga 1\. What has been the role of Mumbai towards cinema since the past one hundred years? 2\. You have recently mentioned that cinema has now being reduced to a commodity. What makes you say that? How do you respond to movies like Court and Fandry? 3\. You have been associated with the film society movement in the seventies and eighties. Can you tell us what are the milestones in this movement? 4\. I would like to quote Mrinal Sen about how his cinema was a way of re-living his childhood days of innocence and fun. Is that possible in this day and age? 5\. If the current trend is of mediocre or commodity driven cinema, there has to be a trend reversal like we had with Saeed Mirza, Kundan Shah or Sham Benegal. What does it take to do that and how can me as a audience spot this change?