Karan Johar has stated in an interview that filmmakers are forced to look towards foreign films for content, because there is a lack of writing talent in India.
He is entitled to his opinion,  but if producers paid writers even a fraction of what they pay for the rights of foreign films, they might get [...]

New Theatres, a Kolkata based film studio, was one of the premier filmmaking institutions that promoted cinema as art and entertainment. The impact of New Theatres was a pan-Indian phenomenon. During the 1930s and the early 1940s, the company produced multi-lingual films which were popular all over the sub-continent. In fact, New Theatres nurtured the [...]

As film critic, I have noticed that filmmakers - directors, producers, stars, actors - most of them, do not take kindly to any kind of negative comment in reviews of their films. There was an article in the edit page of SCREEN on this recently. My question is - why? We live [...]

‘Raajneeti’ is what happens the morning after a particularly greasy, spicy, mass-produced dinner the night before.
In Madhopur, everyone struggles with constipation. This gives them one set tortured expression and husky voices.

Except for one woman who makes funny faces before, during and after sex. She wants a seat so badly that she’s willing to lick seat. [...]

‘UNDERSTANDING’ CINEMA VERSUS THE STIGMA OF BEING AN ‘INTELLECTUAL’
Recently I bumped into an old friend of mine at a suburban mall in Bombay. We knew each other from Calcutta, sharing the same passion for cinema and making the rounds of film festivals and retrospectives held in and around Nandan, soaking [...]

When Mithun turns with eyes glowing like embers in Manmohan Desai’s “Ganga Jamuna Saraswati” and delivers – Ek artist ko kya chahiye? Do waqt ki roti aur public ka pyaar…. the hall erupted in seetis and taalis. That still remains FTIIans favorite line.

Yeh public hai kya? Kya yeh sab jaanti hai?
Sure. It throws out inept, [...]

Recently, there has been a flurry of articles all over on Southern cinema heroes, in particular, Vikram, Suriya and Rana Daggubati. Outlook, Hindustan Times, and Sunday Mid-day have all published similar features. It was but a matter of time that TV channels too got into the act and NDTV has done a special segment as [...]

In the last few years, Marathi cinema has been attracting a lot of attention in the country. A new life seems to have been injected into it. If we may ask as to what is essentially new about it, then the answer is the bunch of new directors, with fairly [...]

As a filmmaker, when one is busy with one’s work, the last thing one actually manages to find time for is to watch films! (Yes, it’s true!) Still, combining duty with work, I do take out whatever time I can to view some of the current Hindi releases in order to review them for [...]

After a long day filled with chatter, horns, heat, money, receipts, polite conversations, organization, it took me a while to settle into Amit Dutta’s ‘Aadmi Ki Aurat aur Anya Kahaniyan‘.
The story of a man and his room near a tree (Pedh par Kamra  by Vinod Kumar Shukla) shared by rats, pigeons, kites, crows, squirrels and [...]