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Short remembers Kumar Shahani

A special program by Cecilia Cossio

On February 24, 2024, in Calcutta, the world lost Kumar Shahani, one of the brightest lights in Indian cinema. Among the leading figures of the “parallel” (to mainstream) movement, referred to as the New Cinema that emerged in the late 1960s, Kumar Shahani stood apart as its most innovative, cultured, and sophisticated exponent. Born in Larkana (today Pakistan) in 1940, he moved with his family to Bombay (India) at the age of seven, following the bloody Partition between the two newly independent states in 1947. After earning degrees in political science and history at the University of Bombay, he enrolled in screenwriting and directing courses at the Film and Television Institute in Pune. There, he encountered two individuals who would profoundly shape his outlook: the great Marxist historian D.D. Kosambi and the legendary film and theater director Ritwik Ghatak.

After graduating in 1966, Kumar Shahani obtained a scholarship to study at the Institut des Hautes Études Cinématographiques in Paris (1967-68), where he met the third significant figure in his formation: Robert Bresson, whom he assisted on Une femme douce. Upon returning to India, in 1972 he directed his first feature film, Maya darpan (Mirror of Illusion). “Kumar Shahani is my best student,” Ritwik Ghatak once said, “when his films come out, they will be staggering.”

And he was right: Maya darpan—which won the national award for cinematography and Best Hindi Film, the Filmfare Critics Award, a special mention at the Locarno Film Festival, and has become a milestone of Indian cinema—garnered an elite circle of admirers while also stirring controversial, at times hostile, reactions, due to its unusual orchestration of time and space, as well as the stylized, abstract quality of its aesthetic language. Having secured a Homi Bhabha Fellowship (1976-78) to study the epic tradition of the Mahabharata alongside Buddhist iconography, Indian classical music, and the medieval devotional movement, K. Shahani took twelve years to complete his second film, Tarang (Wages and Profits, 1984). It was in this work that his idea of epic cinema began to crystallize, reaching full expression in Khayal gatha (The Khayal Saga, 1989), which explores the complex evolution of the khayal, one of the great forms of Indian classical music. The film received the FIPRESCI award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival and, in India, the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Film. This was followed by Kasba (1990), a remarkable adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s short story In the Ravine (V ovrage, 1900), and Char adhyay (Four Chapters, 1997), based on Tagore’s controversial 1934 novel of the same name.

Kumar Shahani also directed several documentaries, a term hardly sufficient for works that—like all his films—demand extraordinary attention and an interdisciplinary perspective. The gem we present here, Bhavantarana (Immanence, 1991), stands out among them. It focuses on odissi, one of the classical Indian dance forms, explored through one of its greatest exponents, Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra (1926-2004). Shahani’s final work also centers on this dance tradition, though he never saw its completed version: Priye charushile (O beloved! o virtuous one [taken from canto 19 in the tenth chapter of Jayadeva’s 12th-century Gitagovinda]). Production halted in 2009 due to lack of funds, resumed in 2013, and was finished around 2019, though it remains undistributed. Its protagonist is an Italian dancer, Ileana Citaristi, a Ca’ Foscari alumna who has lived in Bhubaneswar (Odisha) since 1979, a renowned odissi performer and pupil of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra.

Along with these works that illuminated the history of Indian cinema, Kumar Shahani was also the author of important essays, many of which are collected in The Shock of Desire and Other Essays (2015). There, he writes not only about cinema but also about politics, aesthetics, censorship, and artistic freedom. The volume was edited and introduced by the noted film scholar Ashish Rajadhyaksha.

That is the “public” Kumar Shahani. But then there was “our” Kumar, who served on the international competition jury at the Short in 2014. We had never met him in person and awaited his arrival with some trepidation, given the aura that preceded him. And then he arrived: a modestly built, unassuming man who walked with some difficulty—remnants of childhood polio—sporting a head of lovely white hair, a warm smile, and a kindness that ran deeper than mere manners, reflecting an innately gracious spirit. He was discreet, almost self-effacing, yet unmistakably sharp and self-aware. Anyone prone—for personal reasons—to raise their voice or betray a certain impatience would find themselves calming down in his presence, perhaps even smiling. We called it the “Kumar effect.” We loved him from the start, and still feel his absence acutely. And he, in turn, loved the Short, because, as he said, “It made me want to live.”

Bhavantarana (Immanence, 1991) 63’, Oriya

Director: Kumar Shahani
Cinematography: Alok Upadhyay
Editing: Paresh Kamdar
Music: Hariprasad Chaurasia, Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, Bhubaneshwar Misra
Executive Producer: Roshan Shahani
Production: XPD Division, Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India

Classical odissi dance and one of its greatest masters, Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, inspire this work that intertwines the diverse philosophical, epic, and aesthetic sources of India’s cultural heritage. Widely considered one of the finest films ever made about dance, it won the National Award for Best Biographical Film in India in 1991, along with the Filmfare Critics Award, and received the Best Documentary Award at the Mannheim Film Festival in 1992.

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