Vichaarmanthan

Padma Vibhushan Adoor Gopalakrishnan
Film Maker

“The idea of spreading the message of good cinema is getting lost by the minute. It is important that we expose the concept of a good cinema to children from a young age,” said renowned filmmaker; Padma Vibhushan Adoor Gopalakrishnan during Vichaarmanthan, an interactive session with Indian and global visionaries held in Kristu Jayanti College, on March 15, 2018. “No one in India ever thought film making would be considered an academic topic today, nobody believed that it would,” he added. Giving a broad outline of the Indian film history, he traced its roots back all the way to Nehru’s period step by step. “Indian cinema was nowhere in terms of standards when you compare it to the world. It was enjoying a rather low status,” remembered Adoor Gopalakrishnan while talking about the steps and precautions the Nehru government took in order to bring the standards of films higher. He told the students that the initiation of an International Film Festival is what brought about remarkable standards in the Indian film industry. He urged on the concept of a good cinema, the ones that used to touch the audience and not merely forgotten upon exiting the theatre. Adoor Gopalakrishnan threw light on what cinema meant, and the changes brought about in the present, “In the earlier days we sued to rely on negatives and editing was a complex procedure that would take time, but now everything has been made easier and much more instantaneous as you can edit and re shoot after checking on the spot.” He also went on to talk about censorship restricting and hampering with the creativity of film makers by explaining how the flow of the movie is interrupted when shots get cut.

“From the session, we were able to understand that a film isn’t just the vision of a director, but rather the reality that is given rise to,” said Mr. Kevin Joseph, a second year MA English student, when asked about the change of perspective sparked due to the key note session. The session helped in shifting the view point of students from the mainstream media and going back to the golden era on which film making was considered as a pure art form.