Adi Shankaracharya (1983) Also Known As: The Philosopher Country: India Language: Sanskrit Year: 1983 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: History, Mythology
Description By the end of the century, Hindu thought and philosophy had acquired several obscurities and inconsistencies and faced a challenge from other heterodox sects and Buddhism. Born in Kerala, Shankaracharya arrived on the religious scene around this time. As a boy he was instructed in the religious life by his father and made to practice the prevalent rituals. His father's death, however, compelled him to think deeply about life and death, the body and the soul. With his mother's approval, Shankaracharya decided to lead a life of austerity. Donning the robes of the renouncer he set out on a journey in the quest of Truth, a journey which would take him across the sub-continent. Shankaracharya furthered the school of Vedantic thought and propagated the Advaita (Monism) philosophy, eventually leading to the establishment of the four famous learning centres in the far corners of India.
Cast: Sarvadaman D Banerjee, M V Narayana Rao, Manjunath Bhatt, L V Sharada Rao, Leela Narayana Rao, T S Nagabharana, Srinivasa Prabhu | | Director: G V Iyer Music Director: Mangalampalli Balamuralikrishna
| | Ek Din Achanak (1989) Also Known As: Suddenly, One Day Country: India Language: Hindi Year: 1989 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Drama
Description It is the story of a man - of one among many. Suddenly one day the man, a retired professor, disappears. days roll into months, life goes on, but the children and the wife keep on looking back. The lost man appears on the scene over and over again - all fragmented encounters between him and others, all that happened in the past which freely intermingle with the present. Thus, through unceasing dialogue between the past and the present, life of the interior begins to unfold itself revealing receptions an diverse levels and eventually cutting the man to his size.
(Movie description reproduced with permission of mrinalsen.org)
Cast: Shabana Azmi, Shreeram Lagoo, Rupa Ganguly, Uttara Baokar, Arjun Chakraborty, Manohar Singh, Anil Chatterjee, Anjan Dutt, Lily Chakravarty | | Director: Mrinal Sen Music Director: Jyotishka Dasgupta Story: Ramapada Chowdhury
| | Gaman (1978) Also Known As: The Passing, Going Country: India Language: Hindi Year: 1978 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Drama
Description GAMAN is a poem of the dispossessed of this country; of those who are forced by circumstances beyond their control to leave their families and their homes thereby destroying the social and cultural fabric of their environment themselves. It is the story of a young man from U.P., ghulam Hasan, who has little education, less land and no opportunity in his own village and has, therefore, to migrate to Bombay, leaving behind his old mother and young wife, Khairun. With his departure, life for these women comes to a standstill the present is unbearable, the future uncertain. In the city, Ghulam finds refuge with his friend from the village, Lallu Lal Tewari who is a taxi-driver.
Cast: Farooq Shaikh, Smita Patil, Jalal Agha, Nana Patekar, Gita Siddharth, Amir Bano, Protima Bedi, Arun Bhutanatha, Arvind Deshpande, Sulabha Deshpande, Arun Joglekar, Nitin Sethi | | Director: Muzaffar Ali Music Director: Jaidev
| | Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro (1983) Also Known As: Who Pays The Piper, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Let It Go Friends Country: India Language: Hindi Year: 1983 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Comedy, Drama
Description A photographer-duo start a studio, only to find wrong things happening right from its launch. However, their photographic assignments lead them to expose shady facts about the city's builders, municipal officers, and others. The film exposes many evils through its hilarious style, which weaves into its narrative slapstick comedy, as well as epic (a la Mahabharata) episodes to incisive effect.
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Ravi Baswani, Bhakti Barve, Satish Shah, Neena Gupta, Om Puri, Pankaj Kapur, Deepak Qazir, Rajesh Puri, Uday Chandra, Anil Chaudhary, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Ajay Wadhavkar, Kenny Desai | | Director: Kundan Shah Music Director: Vanraj Bhatia
| | Kamla Ki Maut (1989) Also Known As: Death Of Kamla Country: India Language: Hindi Year: 1989 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Drama
Description Kamla, a 20-year old girl in love with a young man, is seized by panic when she discovers that she is pregnant. She lives in a one-room flat in a five-storey building teeming with middle class families. Seeing no way out of the problem and overcome by feelings of guilt, she goes to the balcony and jumps down to her death. Neighbours come out to watch the tragedy. Among them are Sudhakar, his wife, and their two daughters. The incident sets them all thinking and looking into their own secret lives. They come to the nagging conclusion that Kamla was no more guilty than they themselves.
Cast: Kavita Thakur, Akhil Mishra, Dimple Arora, Irfan Khan, Ashutosh Gowariker, Pankaj Kapur, Rupa Ganguly, Radha Asrani, Mrinal Deo, Harshada Desai, Ninad Deshpande, Ramesh Goyal, Devendra Khandelwal, Anjali Kulkarni, Jaya Mathur, Supriya Pathak, Adil Rana, Ashalata | | Director: Basu Chatterjee Music Director: Salil Choudhury
| | Mirch Masala (1985) Also Known As: A Touch of Spice, Spices Country: India Language: Hindi Year: 1985 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Drama
Description A small village on the sandy fringe of Saurashtra, where illiteracy is pervasive, employment is scarce, women are routinely oppressed, and landlords are all-powerful. The British still rule India. An officer of the alien government, a Subedar, assigned to collect taxes, arrives in the village. He is a combination of a braggart and a clown with a sadistic streak to him. He is accompanied by his soldiers and a horse, a proud symbol of his authority. The moment the Subedar sets his eyes on the dusky Sonbai, a spirited beauty known for her defiant ways, he forgets all about taxes and lusts for her openly. Knowing that it is normal for a Subedar to expect gifts from a village, he shamelessly demands Sonbai and the spineless villagers, knowing that Sonbai's husband is away, agree to oblige. What happens next?
Cast: Smita Patil, Naseeruddin Shah, Raj Babbar, Om Puri, Deepti Naval, Supriya Pathak, Suresh Oberoi, Dina Pathak, Ram Gopal Bajaj, Benjamin Gilani, Mohan Gokhale, Neena Kulkarni, Harish Patel, Ratna Pathak, Paresh Rawal | | Director: Ketan Mehta Music Director: Rajat Dholakia
| | Party (1984) Country: India Language: Hindi Year: 1984 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Drama
Description A rich middle-aged widow Damayanti, a high society patron of the arts, hosts a party in honour of Diwakar Barve, a celebrated playwright and novelist, who has received a prestigious literary award. The party attracts the literary and cultural elite of the town, as also the fawning cognoscenti which trail in their wake. One name keep cropping up in the course of the conversation: Amrit, a writer of immense talent and potential, once very much patronized by this set. Amrit, the powerful poet, left a promising literary career to join the tribal people in their struggle against exploitation. His attempt to bridge the chasm between words and deed haunts all others present at the party. He is the invisible thread binding the tapestry of the film together, his enigmatic presence finally becoming more meaningful and poignant than all the rest.
Cast: Rohini Hattangadi, Manohar Singh, Vijaya Mehta, Deepa Sahi, Shafi Inamdar, Amrish Puri, Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Ila Arun, Pearl Padamsee, Gulan Kripalani, Jayant Kripalani, Vijay Kashyap, Mohan Bhandari, Soni Razdan | | Director: Govind Nihalani
| | Pestonjee (1988) Country: India Language: Hindi Year: 1988 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Comedy, Drama
Description Piroj and Pestonjee are two friends who get along well in spite of being so different in temperament. Piroj, an accountant, is reserved while Pestonjee, is an extrovert. Jeroo, a pretty girl and of marriageable age, is shown to both Piroj and Pestonjee on separate occasions. While Piroj dithers about marrying her, Pestonjee instantly makes up his mind, unaware that his friend has also seen and liked the same girl. Piroj is hurt, but it does not mar their friendship. Piroj is transferred to Bhusaval but continues to keep in touch. On a brief visit to Bombay he is shattered to discover that the marriage is on the verge of collapse.
Cast: Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Anupam Kher, Kiron Kher, Chandu Parkhi | | Director: Vijaya Mehta Music Director: Vanraj Bhatia
| | Salaam Bombay (1988) Also Known As: Salaam Bombay! Country: India Language: Hindi Year: 1988 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Drama
Description Ten-year-old Krishna is a street dweller in Bombay. He finds many strugglers like him on the street, his only abode. Krishna experiences sorrows and joys of life for himself; and those who have seen only miseries, he sees them transforming into different human beings.
Cast: Nana Patekar, Anita Kanwar, Raghuvir Yadav, Amrit Patel, Ram Moorti, Shaukat Azmi, Irfan Khan, Yunus Parvez, Sanjana Kapoor, Anjan Srivastav, Sulabha Deshpande, Dinshaw Daji | | Director: Mira Nair Music Director: L Subramaniam
| | Suraj Ka Satvan Ghoda (1992) Also Known As: The Seventh Horse Of The Sun Country: India Language: Hindi Year: 1992 Color/BW: COLOR Category: Feature Film Genre: Drama, Romance
Description This film narrative takes place over seven days during which time Manek Mulla, a young man barely out of his teens, tells three stories about himself. These stories revolve around Manek's involvement with women. In each case one or another circumstances leads to his separation from his beloved. The tone of the stories is 'tongue-in-cheek' and sometimes borders on the fantastic and surreal. There is consistency and ambiguity - a blurring of a distinction between the real and the invented.
For Menak Mulla, the purpose of telling these stories is to define the meaning of love. As it transpires, none of the stories Manek tells actually define love.... If they do, they define what love is not.
The film is a comedy but not without a twinge of pain and a sense of loss.
Cast: Amrish Puri, Neena Gupta, K K Raina, Pallavi Joshi, Raghuvir Yadav, Rajit Kapoor, Rajeshwari Sachdev, Riju Bajaj, Veerendra Saxena, Himani Shivpuri, Lalit Tiwari | | Director: Shyam Benegal Music Director: Vanraj Bhatia Story: Dharmvir Bharati
| | | Format: DVD Label:NFDC Catalog No: NFDC DVD 087 DVD Region: All Region No Of Disks: 10 Subtitles: English Video: NTSC | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
