Indie films at MoMA

Illustration/Uday Mohite

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) that I visited last month, is one of my favourite places in New York. In fact, while researching for the Satyajit Ray, His Contemporaries and Legacy retrospective that I curated for the Toronto International Film Festival's TIFF Cinematheque last month, I came across fascinating information on the MoMA website that made me see my work as a curator in a different perspective. MoMA screened Satyajit Ray's debut feature Pather Panchali on May 3, 1955. Prepping for their exhibition on Textiles and Ornamental Arts of India, Edgar J Kaufmann, Jr, MoMA's Director of Good Design, happened to see Ray's work-in-progress in Calcutta, and was so impressed, he persuaded Edward Steichen and Monroe Wheeler, then MoMA's Director of Exhibitions and Publications, to actually send Ray finishing funds to complete the film, so it could be shown during the textiles exhibition. That's how Pather Panchali had its world premiere at MoMA, immediately establishing Ray's international reputation.

It was only the following year that the film was shown at the Cannes International Film Festival, in 1956, where it won the Human Document Prize, which consolidated his reputation. So Edgar J Kaufmann,Jr, a curator or rather Director of Good Design, MoMA, played a crucial role not only in discovering Ray and firmly establishing his career internationally, but also consolidating the place of Indian cinema globally. The MoMA team had the expansive vision to offer funding for a then-unknown debut filmmaker, and even include his film for an exhibition on Indian textiles and ornaments.

MoMA continues to have a film team that curates world class programming, that includes Rajendra Roy, The Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film, Josh Siegel, Curator, Department of Film, and La Frances Hui, also Curator, Department of Film. They have long had an interest in world cinema, including Indian cinema, which they have screened over the years at MoMA, as well as in New Directors/New Films (ND/NF), a collaboration between Film at Lincoln Center and MoMA. Roy, who joined MoMA in 2007, as the Celeste Bartos Chief Curator of Film, leads MoMA's year-round initiatives to exhibit and preserve works from its collection of over 30,000 titles. He has organised numerous exhibitions in collaboration with partners, including Julia Reichert: 50 Years in Film, Pedro Almodovar and Wim Wenders.

La Frances Hui has now curated a superb, forthcoming package of Indian films called Making Waves: A New Generation of Indian Independent Filmmakers, showcasing 21 Indian films, from September 15-October 12, at MoMA. Of the package of 16 features and five shorts, selected from the past decade or so, La Frances Hui writes, "These small-budget but artistically ambitious and accomplished films have expanded the making of, thinking about, and ways of seeing Indian film." The feature films include Pushpendra Singh's Lajwanti (The Honour Keeper) and Laila aur Satt Geet (The Shepherdess and the Seven Songs), Chaitanya Tamhane's The Disciple and Court, Achal Mishra's Gamak Ghar (The Village House, opening film) and Dhuin, PS Vinothraj's Koozhangal (Pebbles), Anamika Haksar's Ghode Ko Jalebi Khilane Le Ja Riya Hoon (Taking the Horse to Eat Jalebis), Arun Karthick's Nasir, and Rima Das' Bulbul Can Sing. And there's Payal Kapadia's marvellous documentary, A Night of Knowing Nothing. The shorts include Sohrab Hura's The Coast, Ashim Ahluwalia's Events in a Cloud Chamber, and Tanvi Chowdhary and Tanmay Chowdhary's Madhu. Amit Dutta has three of his films - Nainsukh, Drawn From Dreams and Bat like Devil Chaser with a Top Hat. Pushpendra Singh and Achal Mishra will be present for a Q/A following their screenings. MoMA has acknowledged the support of Bina Paul and Anu Rangachar, among others. A number of these films are also available on streaming sites in the US.

"There are times when the critic truly risks something - that is in the discovery and defence of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations. The new needs friends," as the critic Anton Ego reflected in the film Ratatouille. The films MoMA has chosen are not new as such; yet "there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." MoMA could well be that tide.

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com