Category — Film Policy

Two reports in Shanghai Daily and Business Daily Africa highlight the plight of low budget filmmaking in China and the local film industry in Africa respectively.

“Big hits overseas, bomb at home” (China Daily) taking the example of In Love We Trust argues that [Read more →]

Ritwik Ghatak

Subaltern Cinema is proud to present an excerpt from the thesis submitted by noted Indian filmmaker Ritwik Kumar Ghatak to the Communist Party of India in 1954. It remained undiscovered till 1993. The thesis remained buried for many years, and was only discovered in old files in the Communist Party Office. Going through the thesis, it becomes vivid that the same situation persists even today. As a result, such a strong pen is relevant till this date. [Read more →]

The lament of Partha Chatterjee, the doyen of the original Subaltern Studies project, over the neglect of Ritwik Ghatak’s films at the Ritwik Ghatak Memorial Trust in the congested Chetla market in Kolkata points to the subaltern nature of Ghatak in Indian film history and indeed consciousness: [Read more →]

Message from Gaurav Jani, Praveen Kumar, Rakesh Sharma

Film-makers Rakesh Sharma, Gaurav Jani and Praveen Kumar yesterday (on Sept 14) registered their protest with the President of India during the National Film Awards ceremony organised by the Ministry for Information & Broadcasting. Each of them handed over a protest petition to the President as they went up to collect their awards. The film-makers were protesting against the growing harassment of documentary film-makers by the police and officials from the CBFC (Central Board for Film Certification). The full text of the protest petition is enclosed below. [Read more →]

This Hindu Business Line report states Fun Republic, the Essel Group exhibition and retail property company has plans to launch a 1000 screens in the next five years. If you ignore the cheerleading and the hype that typifies Indian media coverage today (“The day is not far when sitting on a comfortable couch in your drawing room, you will see Keanu Reaves somersault through the air in The Matrix the same moment audiences in the US view it for the first time on their big screens.”) some interesting points can be dug out. Cinemax, the report claims: [Read more →]

Sharmila Tagore, the head of the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has argued that Indian films belittle women (read here). Commenting on the refusal to certify Closer for its “wordy sex talk”. Her reasons?

Indian audiences — especially those outside the big metropolises, who are typically more conservative, less educated and, she says, less “media-literate”. [Read more →]

Here is the full text of the judgement on the litigation against the government by Gaurav Ashwin Jani, Anand Patwardhan and Simantini Dhuru over the selection of films for National Film Awards. [Read more →]

According to this report on Yahoo India FTII has entered into a collaboration with Hollywood.

The Films and Television Institute of India (FTII) of Pune and the Satyajit Ray Film Institute of Kolkata will soon collaborate with Hollywood, Information and Broadcasting Minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunsi said here Monday. [Read more →]

There is both recognition and discomfort in many quarters across South Asia over the rising popularity of the India cultural industry. Countries skirting India are responding to the challenge, though it is more rhetorical than substance. It is argued here that for a truly diverse South Asian film culture to evolve, policy needs to go beyond statements, tax breaks, subsidies, and exhibition quotas. [Read more →]

Another country has signed a co-production pact with India. The salient features of the pact are:

• minimum contribution includes at least one leading actor, one supporting actor and one qualified technical staff person.
• language of soundtrack: Hindi or any other Indian language or dialect, or in English or German or in any combination of those permitted languages. [Read more →]