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18 June, 2016

Bengaluru’s Erasure: One Exhibition At A Time
By Rashmi Munikempanna

The exhibition which happened over a weekend in June, at Venkatappa Art Gallery in Bengaluru, responded to an archive of photographs of Stephen (Simon) Simmons, a British military man stationed in Bengaluru during the 1930s, about the Bangalore hunt. This exhibition is an important marker within the larger framework of the battle over Venkatappa Art Gallery

11 February, 2016

'White Nights', A Path Breaking Venture In Malayalam Cinema
By P. Baburaj

Razi's film is inspired by the story WHITE NIGHTS written by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in 1848. Dostoyevsky tells the story of the companionship of the two lonely people during the white nights in St. Petersburg in Russia. The film is dedicated to the great writer but Razi's story is placed in Attappady, the remote tribal area in Palakkad District in central Kerala. WHITE NIGHTS is divided into two sections. Five nights in the forest where two strangers meet and reminisce their past and five days elsewhere in Attappady where a deprived and oppressed tribal community grapple with their present

08 May, 2015

Bollywood’s [Re]presentation of ‘Kashmir’ And ‘Kashmiri’:
From Romance (Kashmir Ki Kali) To Tragedy (Haider)

By Dr. M Ashraf Bhat

The realist cinema, like naked art is always disturbing, and Haider being realistic is mainly because it engaged a well-informed insider, Basharat Peer, to frame its screenplay. Apart from the controversies, it is essential to understand what ‘Haider’ offers different from the Bollywood’s earlier discourses depicting Kashmir

08 April, 2015

Prospero's Business
By John Knope

This article points out an alternative scenario that is hidden within a few lines in The Tempest. This “secret meaning” has never been written about by any scholar that I could find, nor has it been presented in any of the several filmed versions of the play that are available. No familiarity with The Tempest or Shakespeare is required to understand this hidden feature. Following the short explanation of this secret element is a brief attempt at understanding how this obvious feature (and hopefully you will agree it is obvious) has not been previously noticed by any reviewer of the play

Poets’ Talk: “Why Is This World So Sad?” And, “The Armor of God”
By Gary Corseri and Charles Orloski

Following is the third installment of a “Poets’ Talk” series between Charles Orloski and myself. E-friends for the past 3 years, both of us “baby-boomers,” Orloski and I have very different backgrounds, but share a love of literature, abiding interests in history, politics and the Zeitgeist, and a belief that informed activism and the Arts (with much luck and perhaps some Providential assistance!) may yet create a more humane, a more sensible, world than 2015’s war-ravaged planet of obscene disparities of wealth and power. The conversation below is actually a pastiche of “e-talks,” or exchanges, over several weeks, winnowed and woven together to develop themes, a narrative flow, and coherence.—Gary Corseri

26 August, 2013

Madras Cafe: Intercept The Half-Truth
By Karthick RM

Selective history, grand conspiracy theory, not-so-subtle Indian patriotism all go into the making of a movie that principally exonerates India from all culpability of the brutal war crimes committed against the Tamils by the IPKF. From the start till the end, the subtext of the movie is to project India, a nuclear power state with the fourth largest army in the world, as a victim of the LTTE. For the record, at the height of the IPKF-LTTE war, over 100000 Indian soldiers armed to the teeth confronted about 3000 LTTE cadres. Despite this, India lost

07 August, 2013

David Low's Legacy And Sigmund Freud
By Anil Gokhale

History will recognize Sir David Low, not only as Humanitarian Humorist and cartoonist with extra ordinary wit but more importantly he was essentially an ‘anti war' activist! He used all his powers as humorist against ‘war-mongers' and against the dictators

02 September, 2012

We, The Liberal Artists
By Aarti

Art work that reflects the problems of the structurally disadvantaged therefore does spread awareness at a limited level and is important, but what is of pressing need is scathingly honest work that is critical of liberal society. The aim must be to look inward, and realize that the problems don't lie elsewhere, but in our everyday interactions, our homes, the books we read, the movies we watch and the art that we make

21 July, 2012

The Dark Knight Rises A Fascist?
By Karthick RM

Watching the climax of the movie, I was convinced of Zizek’s argument that Hollywood can even imagine the end of the world, but not of capitalism. And the system’s old defenders will be replaced by new ones, probably with a new series of movies on them as well!

27 March, 2012

Sarat: The Third Eye Of Resistance
By Countercurrents.org

"The Third Eye Of Resistance" is a documentary on the life and work of C. Saratchandran who passed away in an accident in 2010. It is a journey through the life of Sarat, as he was fondly called, who travelled constantly with the camera and cinemas. It is a journey through the vivid, living memories of the protesters at Chaliyar, Plachimada, Muthanga and Kathikudam; through the experiences of his friends and everyone who have travelled with him or parallel to his path

02 Feburay, 2012

Where Did All Of These Go?
By Gagan Rism

Gabbar's ‘Aak-thoo' is thing of past. And so is Om Prakash's whiny ‘aa haaan haaaan…' before delivering a dialogue and Utpal Dutt's ‘eeeeshhhh……'. Neither are seen anymore the miserly, cunning old Sahukars in our pastoral romances, nor the picnic-songs in the picturesque valley of Kashmir . At times, it leaves one wonder – where did all of these go?

21 March, 2011

Why Hindi Pulp Is Not Literature?
By Gagan Rism

When English pulp fiction, be it, Mills & Boon’s Romances, Silhouettes and Temptations; Sidney Sheldon, Agatha Christie, James Headly Chase, etc. can be assimilated as ‘popular fiction’ genre in English literature, it is a matter of concern that Hindi pulp is left to curl behind the tag of ‘cheap and trash’ and thus banished out of the umbrella of mainstream literature

18 October, 2010

In Memory Of Amitava Dasgupta
By Shamsul Islam

Acclaimed peoples’ theatre and music director Amitava Dasgupta, known to his friends as Amit Da, breathed his last on October 9, 2010. With his death India and the world also lost a prominent practitioner of Brechtian genre of theatre

27 August, 2010

Peepli [Live]- Strange Days Have Found Us
By Sahil Kureshi

The film doesn't say anything about anything. All the film maker has done, in typical TV news channel style, is picked up a sensitive issue to attract attention to the film

19 July, 2010

Life vs. 'Expediency': Thoughts On Soylent Green
By Javier Sethness

Some Reflections on the 1973 science-fiction film Soylent Green, in the context of the present day

29 April, 2010

Sharab, Shabab And Shayari –
The Chronic Misinterpretation Of Urdu Poetry

By Gagan Rism

Like any poetry, Urdu shayari is no exception to the general rule that the words are mostly used metaphorically in it. Depending upon the context, words demand a symbolic rather than literal interpretation. Like any poetry, therefore, Urdu shayari too deserves a rational and non-prejudicial understanding of the same

26 April, 2010

How Hollywood Hides The Horrors Of War
By Slavoj Žižek

For all its mystifications, Avatar clearly sides with those who oppose the global Military-Industrial Complex, portraying the superpower army as a force of brutal destruction serving big corporate interests. The Hurt Locker, on the other hand, presents the U.S. Army in a way that is much more finely attuned to its own public image in our time of humanitarian interventions and militaristic pacifism

23 March, 2010

The Empty Locker
By Phil Aliff

Why did the Academy Award for Best Picture go to a film about the Iraq war that has absolutely nothing to say, asks Iraq Veterans Against the War member Phil Aliff

11 March, 2010

An Oscar For America’s Hubri
By Robert Scheer

What a shame that the one movie about the Iraq war that has a chance of being viewed by a large worldwide audience should be so disappointing. According to press reports, members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences finally found a movie about the Iraq war they liked because it is “apolitical.” Actually, “The Hurt Locker” is just the opposite; it’s an endorsement of the politically chauvinistic view that the world is a stage upon which Americans get to deal with their demons no matter the consequence for others

09 March, 2010

"The Hurt Locker": When Great Art
Meets Lousy Politics

By Bernard Weiner

I despise the implicit pro-Iraq War politics of "The Hurt Locker": There is no examination or even mention in the film of why the U.S. might be fighting there, no look at the neo-conservative ideology that sent our troops there, no questioning of the aggressive tactics aimed at Iraqi civilians, no overt politics at all, for that matter. But I cannot deny the movie's aesthetic power. It is a great film, one of the few war movies that really got into my gut. It well deserves its Best Picture Oscar

26 February , 2010

Avatar: A Deceptive Saga Of Reaction
By Joe.M.S.

The reactionary element of the whole oeuvre is visible even in the title of the movie, Avatar. It smacks of idealism of dangerous proportions for its genesis in the Brahmanic( read fascistic) lore, which was institutionalised in the thought process and body politic of a country to subjugate the subaltern for thousands of years. The organic link of the western ideological escapism to philosophical orientalism, refurbished and re-articulated in ideological apparatus of eco-metaphysics, proves as a reactionary instrument of oppression against the liberation of the natives, even now

23 February , 2010

Two 'Iraq War' Movies Compete For Awards
By Mamoon Alabbasi

James Cameron's "Avatar" and Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker", in their own ways, 'touch on' the Iraq war, a theme that still haunts the world of politics, almost seven years on since the US-led invasion

22 February , 2010

Avatar: Addressing The Attending Confusion
By Frederick Alexander Meade

I undertake this journalistic excursion in response to a published article authored by Rohini Hensman entitled, “Avatar: A Parable About The Encounter Between Capitalism And Indigenous Peoples,” (Counter Currents.Org, Jan 29th 2010) in which the writer took liberty in critiquing my thoughts as expressed in an article I wrote entitled, “Avatar: An Extension of White Supremacy.” (Counter Currents.Org, Jan 5th 2010)

19 February , 2010

Bollywood Wakes Up To 9/11
By B. R. Gowani

The Indian film industry in Mumbai has now come of age, because in recent years it has demonstrated it can tackle diverse and controversial subjects away from their usual family dramas

10 February , 2010

Why The Oscars Are A Con
By John Pilger

Why are so many films so bad? This year’s Oscar nominations are a parade of propaganda, stereotypes and downright dishonesty. The dominant theme is as old as Hollywood: America’s divine right to invade other societies, steal their history and occupy our memory. When will directors and writers behave like artists and not pimps for a world view devoted to control and destruction?

29 January , 2010

Avatar: A Parable About The Encounter Between
Capitalism And Indigenous Peoples

By Rohini Hensman

This is not a film review of Avatar, more a comment on its politics, and on other commentaries on its politics

23 January , 2010

Free Idiots: An Indian Amir's New Stooges
By Partha Banerjee

A review of the Bollywood blockbuster " 3 Idiots"

05 January , 2010

Avatar: An Extension Of White Supremacy
By Frederick Alexander Meade

Regrettably, movie goers often fail to recognize the incessant inane and divisive ideas promoted by such productions as Avatar and subsequently are subliminally compelled to accept false notions in regard to either the superiority or inferiority of various groups and their subsequent essential value. Such has been the case far more often than the public is perhaps aware

30 November , 2009

Arabic Traces In Ridges of Sand
By Mustapha Marrouchi

Of all the so-called Islamic arts, al-khatt (or trace ) holds a privileged position. Combining function with perfect form, the hyper-stylized and fantastically ornate expressions retain a suppleness and a subtlety unmatched in other cultures

08 November , 2009

Claude Levi-Strauss: The Savage Mind
By Farzana Versey

Claude Levi-Strauss will certainly be more than the residue he thought we all would be and only partially due to being a totem for many thinkers

18 Setpember , 2009

Israel/America: A Rambling Poem
By Remi Kanazi

Remi Kanazi recently appeared on GRITtv with Laura Flanders to perform a spoken word poem entitled Israel/America: A Rambling Poem

12 Setpember , 2009

The Italian Cinema And The Left
By Gaither Stewart

On Rediscovering Roberto Rossellini-Filmmaker

04 Setpember , 2009

N.Ramayana- A Street Play
By Satya Sagar

A street play

24 February , 2009

The 81st Annual Academy Awards:
Lifeless For The most part

By Hiram Lee

One will see how differently things will look in the coming years. The economic crisis which found little expression in the awards ceremony or in the films nominated will make itself felt. There will be social upheavals in the US, as well as other parts of the world. The present stagnant artistic climate will dissipate, which will make it possible for the artists to begin considering the great questions of our time

23 February , 2009

Farewell To Tayeb Salih: One Of Africa’s
Most Illustrious Literary Figures

By Mustapha Marrouchi

They are no longer stirring still. In fact, they are dying at an alarming rate. First, there was Edward Said, then Mahmoud Darwish, and now Tayeb Salih

03 January , 2009

Slumdog Millionaire: Scamming The Audience
By Dan Lieberman

Every once in awhile a seemingly ordinary film entrances an audience beyond expectations. The Indian film Slumdog Millionaire appealed to Americans with its "rags to riches" story of a deprived youth from the slums of Mumbai, India, who used pluck, luck and an astonishing memory of incidents in his life to win 20 million rupees in a quiz program

01 December , 2008

Politics And The Arts,Internationalism And Activism
By Lloyd Rowsey

An Interview With Gary Corseri

20 October , 2008

The Cruel Boredom Of Pornography
By Robert Jensen

Pornography is relentlessly intense, pushing our sexual boundaries both physically and psychically. And, pornography also is incredibly repetitive and boring

A Wednesday- Making Fools Of Us All
By Ashley Tellis

A Wednesday is the latest in a lengthening list of films that prove that the Hindi film industry is complicit with the Indian state in demonising the Muslim and producing amnesiac versions of Indian nationalism and 'terrorism,' says Ashley Tellis

06 October , 2008

A Wednesday: Cinematic Politics
By Kamal Mohammad

A critique of the bollywood film "A Wednesday"

26 September , 2008

“Art And China’s Revolution” At The Asia
Society Museum:An Unofficial Guide To The Exhibit

By Li Onesto

Go see this show. Don’t miss the opportunity to experience this art. Think about, discuss and debate with others, the important questions raised by this exhibit—and the whole period of human history that produced this art

09 September , 2008

Remembering 9/11
By Dr Marwan Asmar

As the world remembers the anniversary of 11 September, Osama Al Zain’s feature documentary Palestine Post 9/11 becomes ever more relevant in providing an analysis of the international system where war became an instrument of politics and priorities and alliances reordered to fight terrorist threats that may have been blown out of all proportions

27 August , 2008

Poetry, Hip-Hop And The Palestinian Experience
By Remi Kanazi

Poets For Palestine is a unique collection of poetry, spoken word, hip-hop and art devoted to Palestine. Unifying a diverse range of poets who have used their words to elevate the consciousness of humanity, this book aims to bridge a younger generation of poets with those who, for decades, have cultivated and strengthened the poetic medium

30 May , 2008

A Dream Deferred: Activism And The Arts
By Gary Corseri

We refuse to be quiet any longer. We refuse to numb ourselves to corporate crime, the military-industrial complex, the pollution of mainstream media, the theft of our ballots, the dumbing-down, the bastardization of our arts and culture. We are gathering and telling our stories. We are listening and painting and shaping the wood and inserting the grace notes. Poets are collaborating with composers and musicians. We no longer buy the tripe of “art for art’s sake.” We do not wait for the professors to sanction what we do. Politics is too important to be left to politicians

21 January , 2008

Horrors
By Mustapha B Marrouchi

Why do the horror, bleakness, and backward-looking despair seem to appeal to a Western audience pleased with itself, comforted by the feeling that the future is safe, that it has nothing to learn from Africa except the price it charges for toys and luxuries that it no longer chooses or knows how to make?

01 November , 2007

Liberals, Racism And The English Language
In 21st Century America

By Larry Pinkney

One of the most powerful and devastating forms of mental colonization in America is the English language itself—or more to the point the controlling definitions of said language. The so-called conservatives and liberals alike of white America are well aware of this, and often actually count on it. Mental colonization of we Black, Brown, and Red peoples assures the continuance of our physical subordination and control

17 September, 2007

M.I.A.’s Kala
By Sukant Chandan

Review of M.I.A's new album 'KALA'

31 August, 2007

Green Voices: Some Aspects Of Ecological Criticism
By Dr. Murali Sivaramakrishnan

Introducing ecocriticism into our hard-core curriculum would thus mean a rereading of our intellectual and cultural inheritance. Perhaps we could reintegrate our value systems and regain our sense of balance and harmony. Not through a strategy of homogenisation and universalisation but through a recognition of difference and an understanding of the many. Passion and compassion are at the core of ecocriticism

31 July, 2007

Song Of The Sleepless River
By Prasanna Ratnayake

In the past two months Hugh Masekela and Afroreggae have given sold-out concerts in the Barbican. But this note is not about jazz or reggae; it traces some reverberations and reflections these events evoked

28 July, 2007

The Terrible Innocence Of Art
By Jorge Majfud

Freedom, perhaps, may be the main differential characteristic of art. And when this freedom does not turn its face away from the tragic reality of its people, then the characteristic turns into moral consciousness. Aesthetics is reconciled with ethics. Indifference is never neutral; only ignorance is neutral, but it proves to be an ethical and practical problem to promote ignorance in the name of some virtue

17 July, 2007

A New Documentary Series
From Dharmasiri Bandaranayake

By Prasanna Ratnayake

Sri Lanka’s political problems cannot be adequately understood without recognising the decades of systematic discrimination and exclusion from our cultural life of our non-Sinhala heritages. Dharmasiri Bandaranayake has made it a personal responsibility to recover and re-present aspects of our true traditions essential to the forging of a culturally coherent and liberated future for Sri Lanka

06 July, 2007

Protecting Culture Or Fishing In Troubled Waters?
By Prasanna Ratnayake

As books are no longer the main means of circulating modern culture, the attack is now on cinema. We are forced, or at least inclined to conclude that the methods of fascism have not changed greatly since the last century

29 May, 2007

Lisa Kois’s Film The Art Of Forgetting – Review
By Prasanna Ratnayake

It is sobering to watch Lisa Kois’s Art of Forgetting which covers the past thirty years of brutal civil wars and assassinations in the North, East and South of Sri Lanka. The subject of this documentary is the impact and scale of human suffering for people caught in the clash between those demanding a motherland and those defending a motherland

28 February, 2007

Parzania : Cinema That Questions The Spectator…..
By Anita Ratnam

We all know that Secularism, sanity, safety cannot become real, if we remain "spectators". But how many movies remind us of this, and so poignantly?

19 February, 2007

Blackened Friday
By Farzana Versey

A critique of the film "Black Friday"

09 January, 2007

James Brown: The Man Who Named A People
By Glen Ford

James Brown can arguably be credited with a feat few humans have achieved since the dawn of time. He named an entire people: Black Americans

The People's Republic Of Me
By Mickey Z.

Novelist Nick Mamatas declares his independence

05 January, 2007

Writing The American Dream
By Mickey Z.

An interview with novelist Mike Palecek

The Slow Suicide Of The West
By Jorge Majfud

The West appears, suddenly, devoid of its greatest virtues, constructed century after century, preoccupied now only with reproducing its own defects and with copying the defects of others, such as authoritarianism and the preemptive persecution of innocents

17 December, 2006

Apocalypto: The Cinematic Logic Of Genocide
By Juan Santos

Despite its extreme brutality Apocalypto isn’t just Gibson’s latest snuff film with a religious theme. The film is a morality play, and there are only two things one needs to remember to get a hint of the ugly moral intent behind Mel Gibson’s depiction of the Maya

24 November, 2006

Viewer Or Voyeur?
By Amrita Nandy-Joshi

Welcome to Indian Schadenfreude telly, where, as per the channel’s webpage, “The celebrities have to entertain themselves for 100 days whilst the public take pleasure in their pains”.

06 November, 2006

Pombo Must Go
By Robert Becker

A poem

03 November, 2006

Lessons from History, Tranquil Ripples
To Convulsive Tides

By Mirza A. Beg

A Poem

28 October, 2006

Lebanon's Irreplaceable Cultural Loss
By Mulham Assir

The loss inflicted by the Israeli war on Lebanon is measured in the 1,400 people killed, the thousands maimed (with more continuing to be killed and maimed by the hundreds of thousands of cluster bombs left behind), the hundreds of thousands displaced or left homeless, and the wholesale destruction of infrastructure essential to life. And yet there is even more loss, impossible to put a number to and irreplaceable- Lebanon's cultural loss

26 October, 2006

What's In A Label?
By Monish R. Chatterjee

Anglophile authors and pandering to neocon and Anglo-American sentiments on colonial freedom fighters.A review of the book Calcutta: a Cultural and Literary History by Krishna Dutta

07 October, 2006

Bricks In The Wall
By Farzana Versey

The fate of the filming of Monica Ali's book will add her to the roster of Joans of Arc in what has now become a routine canonisation ritual of pop multiculturalism. A group of Bangladeshis has been opposing the film version of ' Brick Lane'; they found her story a caricature of them and their surroundings

31 August, 2006

Naguib Mahfouz Is No More
By Jeff Black

Egypt paid tribute yesterday to Naguib Mahfouz, father figure of Arabic literature, who died in Cairo aged 94

28 July, 2006

"An Iron Harvest" By C.P. Surendran
Reviewed By Vinod K. Jose

This is the debut novel of C.P. Surendran, a Resident Editor with The Times of India. The novel is set in Wayanad, Kerala and its Naxalite movement of 70s

09 July, 2006

A Motorbike Trip To Little Tibet- Part 1
By Ingmar Lee

Ladakh, is a wonderous desert moonscape of a land, set amidst the Earth's most spectacular mountain ranges, where an ancient culture strives to preserve its timeless way of life

08 July, 2006

Farewell Sleater-Kinney
By Joshua Frank

I’m shocked to say that when Portland, Oregon based trio Sleater-Kinney announced last week that they were taking an “indefinite hiatus”, I was crushed

22 February, 2006

Horrors Of Camp Delta Are Exposed
By British Victims

By Nigel Morris

Michael Winterbottom's film "The Road to Guantanamo" shows prisoners in orange jumpsuits beaten, manacled to floors and subjected to defeaning music in solitary confinement. It tells the story of Asif Iqbal, Ruhel Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul, the so-called Tipton Three, who set off for Pakistan in September 2001 and ended up in Camp Delta, in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay. They were released without charge after more than two years' imprisonment.Winterbottom has called for the immediate closure of the US-run camp

21 February, 2006

The Muslim As The ‘Other’In Bollywood
By Gagandeep Ghuman

In Bollywood caricatures, Muslims have either been Rahim Chacha’s or self-indulgent nawabs. By putting guns in their hands and jehad on their minds, Bollywood now fosters more dangerous stereotypes

11 February, 2006

Why We Fight
By Eugene Jarecki & Amy Goodman

A new film which opened in theatres in USA yesterday takes a look at the American war machine over the past half century. "Why We Fight" looks at conflicts from World War II right up to the current war in Iraq to examine the political, economic and ideological reasons that drive American war policy

22 January, 2006

My challenge For Steven Spielberg
By Robert Fisk

'Munich' suggests for the first time on the big screen that Israel's policy is immoral

21 January, 2006

"Munich": Spielberg's Thrilling Crisis Of Conscience
By Maureen Clare Murphy

An appreciation of Spielberg's new film "Munich"

08 December, 2005

Art, Truth And Politics
By Harold Pinter

The Nobel Prize lecture

17 October, 2005

The Silence Of Writers
By John Pilger

Harold Pinter recently won the nobel prize for literature. John Pilger reminds us that While other writers have slept or twittered, Pinter has been aware that people are never still, and indeed are stirring again

21 August, 2005

The Rising Of The Rising
By Rajiv Rawat

A Bollywood blockbuster debates Imperialism, while North American film critics take a pass

02 June, 2005

Politics, Tamil Cinema Eshtyle
By S Anand

Tamil cinema's affair with politics has been a long-standing one, but in the last 10 years Tamil cinema has learnt to craft politics in a different fashion. How such politics is perceived and received has depended on the location of the audience in the caste-class, rural-urban axes

25 April, 2005

Abbas Kiarostami- Not A Martyr
By Stuart Jeffries

Jean-Luc Godard has said: "Film begins with DW Griffith and ends with Abbas Kiarostami." According to Martin Scorsese, "Kiarostami represents the highest level of artistry in the cinema." But in Iran, at least in official circles, Kiarostami worship is not on the agenda

23 April, 2005

The Secret Of Islamic Film-Makers
By Tariq Ali

Islamic film-makers have always had to subvert the rules of clerics and censors. It's what makes them some of the world's best directors

19 April, 2005

Decoded At Last: The 'Classical Holy Grail'
By David Keys and Nicholas Pyke

Scientists begin to unlock the secrets of papyrus scraps bearing long-lost words by the literary giants of Greece and Rome

15 April, 2005

Russian Cinema Takes On Hollywood
By Nick Paton Walsh

The phenomenal success of Nochnoi Dozor, or Night Watch, one of a new wave of homegrown blockbusters sweeping Russian cinemas is being touted as proof that Russian film can make money domestically and perhaps abroad

09 April, 2005

My Name Is Rachel Corrie
By Katharine Viner

Two years ago Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American protester, was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza. Since then she has become a potent symbol for both sides of the conflict. But who was the real Rachel? Katharine Viner has edited her writings for a new play "My Name Is Rachel Corrie"

18 March, 2005

The Media, The Entertainment
Industry And Michael Jackson

By David Walsh

The Jackson trial has become the latest media extravaganza, given saturation coverage and endlessly hyped as part of the effort of corporate-controlled “news” outlets to coarsen and corrupt public sensibilities. The sordid character of the trial should come as a surprise to no one

13 March, 2005

Cinema And Secularism
By Mahesh Bhatt

The first rotten phase that Bollywood saw was when, under the name of demonising Pakistan, a lot of movies actually took perverse delight in mocking and ridiculing the Muslim community. It was a phase after which the public, having made one odd film into a big hit, themselves boycotted such films. And it is unlikely now that any such films will be made since they do not run at the box office anymore

01 March, 2005

Expressions In Freedom
Documentary film festival by Asian women in Delhi

This International Women's Day, Delhi will witness a unique celebration of women & the ways in which they express themselves. 'Expressions in Freedom' is a festival celebrating documentary films by Asian women

18 February, 2005

Original Potemkin Beats The Censors After 79 Years
By Ronald Bergan

A new and uncensored version of one of cinema's classics, Battleship Potemkin is shown at the Berlin film festival

10 January, 2005

On The Passing Of Susan Sontag
By Am Johal

We are all diminished with the passing of Susan Sontag

28 October, 2004

Eminem Mosh Against Bush
By Sam Graham-Felsen

Eminem's new video 'Mosh' is a scathing indictment of President Bush and the War in Iraq. Mosh could be one of the most overtly political pop music videos ever produced

06 October, 2004

Indian Censors Hold Up 'Fahrenheit 9/11'
By Indo-Asian News Service

Indian censors are holding up release of the award-winning documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11". Several reasons are being offered on why the censors are worried about the film. One of them is to avoid offending the American authorities

31 August, 2004

The Impact Of Fahrenheit 9/11
By John Berger

Fahrenheit 9/11 is astounding. Not so much as a film - although it is cunning and moving - but as an event.The film, considered as a political act, may be a historical landmark

06 August, 2004

Censor Board Bans 'Final Solution'
By Kalpana Sharma

The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) has refused to pass Rakesh Sharma's award-winning film on the Gujarat violence. Final Solution, the three-and-a-half hour documentary, was rejected by the Board on the grounds that it "promotes communal disharmony among Hindu and Muslim groups and presents the picture of Gujarat riots in a way that it may arouse communal feelings and clashes among Hindu Muslim groups."

28 July, 2004

Film Review: "Control Room"
By Maureen Clare Murphy

A particularly troubling issue presented in the film is how the lines between media and military are blurred by the U.S. administration during wartime, demonstrated by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld discussing how the U.S. government hopes to change Al-Jazeera's coverage as though doing so is part of U.S. military strategy

06 July, 2004

Fahrenheit 9/11 Is A Stupid White Movie
By Robert Jensen

Fahrenheit 9/11 is under attack from the right, for very different reasons than I have raised. But those attacks shouldn't stop those who consider themselves left, progressive, liberal, anti-war, anti-empire or just plain pissed-off from criticizing the film's flaws and limitations

02 July, 2004

Michael Moore Is Blind, Or A Coward
By Bob Dreyfuss

I have to conclude the Michael Moore is either blind, or a coward. Blind, if he can't see Bush's craven ties to Israel, driven by the neocons and the Christian Zionists and Bible-thumping fundamentalists like Jerry Falwell, who consider Israel Jesus' next stop and see Saudi Arabia as Satanic

23 June, 2004

Interface With Anand Patwardhan
By S Prince & Anand Patwardhan

Documentary film maker Anand Patwardhan talks about his politics and his movies

10 June, 2004

'They Want Us To Emigrate'
By Dan de Luce

Thanks to Makhmalbaf and Kiarostami, Iranian cinema is acclaimed around the world. But can its film-makers survive Iran's new conservative censors?

25 March, 2004

The Reel Savarkar
By Niranjan Ramakrishnan

A review of the film by Ved Rahi on the life of VD Savarkar now doing the rounds in North America

04 March, 2004

An Academy Award For Bigotry
By Mike Davis

The most startling thing about Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ -- even more than its relentless, shockingly eroticized cruelty -- is its fidelity to the anti-Semitic conventions of Hitlerian cinema

04 March, 2004

"Matrubhoomi: A Nation Without Women"
By Soma Wadhwa

Manish Jha's film "Matrubhoomi: A Nation Without Women" tells of the metamorphosis of the male into animal if the world were to become womanless. The film takes the evil of female infanticide to its logical conclusion

30 January, 2004

The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine
By John Pilger

John Pilger reviews the documentary "S21: The Khmer Rouge Killing Machine" by Tuol Sleng and the Pol Pot regime

28 November, 2003

A Vatican For Film-Makers
By Chris Payne

How does a Havana film school attract lavish funding and the likes of Soderbergh and Spielberg? With a nod and a wink from Fidel Castro

11 November, 2003

The Silence Of Writers
By John Pilger

For the great writers of the 20th century, art could not be separated from politics. Today, there is a disturbing silence on the dark matters that should command our attention

28 October, 2003

Literature Is Freedom
By Susan Sontag

The Friedenspreis acceptance speech of Susan Sontag

Tagore And His India
By Amartya Sen

A tribute to Tagore by the Nobel luareate Amartya Sen

31 August, 2003

Tagore and Jana Gana Mana
By Monish R. Chatterjee

This article is written in response to the frequently perpetuated myth that Rabindranath Tagore wrote the song Jana Gana Mana for the British monarch

04 August, 2003

Remembering Bhishma Sahani
By K.G. Kannabiran

Bhishma Sahani anticipated Gujarat long before and later in 1988, when his work was televised

23 July, 2003

The Necessity Of Anti-Sentimentalism
By Ananya Jahanara Kabir

Artists response to partition should mover from an overwhelmingly sentimental phase towards more searching, self-reflexive acts of remembrance, recuperation and mourning

11 July, 2003

Harry Potter And The Childish Adult
By A.S. Byatt

Booker Prize winning novelist A.S.Byatt dismisses the latest instalment of the Harry Potter adventures as below par "ersatz magic" which lacked the skill of the great children's writers and catered for readers with stunted imaginations

16 June, 2003

Orwell and Me
By Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood cried her eyes out when she first read Animal Farm at the age of nine. Later, its author became a major influence on her writing. As the centenary of George Orwell's birth approaches, she says he would have plenty to say about the post-9/11 world

17 May, 2003

Singing The Nation
By Nasreen Rehman

The Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi national anthems are very much in the tradition of their Western counterparts, glorifying a make-believe land where the landmass becomes an end in itself – a way of identifying the individual citizen, who is bound and defined by unreal geography and who sings the praise of an unreal nation

'Calcutta Robbed Me Of Words, I Was Mute'

The Nobel Prize winner Gunter Grass in conversation with Subhoranajan Dasgupta on a range of topics from George Bush's crusade to the writer's flowering as an artist.

What is Architecture?
By R.L.Kumar

A view of architecture as human and intimate, craft like and local, regenerative and impermanent, the only long term and sustainable paradigm for homelessness and a relevant aesthetic.

Public Spaces: The Architecture of Supervised Freedom
By R.L. Kumar

Roads, parks, capitols, beaches, zoological/botanical sanctuaries are all public spaces which, in their design and intent, guarantee the freedom of some while denying the freedom of others.

 



 



 

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