5th NOVEMBER 1945 ARUN KHOPKAR BORN

Arun Khopkar Director | Actor | Assistant Director Arun Khopkar was born on November 5, 1945 in Bombay, Maharashtra, India. He is a director and actor, known for Figures of Thought (1990), Pravahi (2004) and Nirnaya(1979). See full bio » Born:  November 5, 1945 in Bombay, Maharashtra, India

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Filmography

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 2004Pravahi (Documentary short) 

 2002Haathi Ka Anda 

 1993Colours of Absence (Documentary) 

 1991Sanchari (Documentary) 

 1990Figures of Thought (Documentary short) 

 1989Oral Self-Examination (Documentary) 

 1988Images of India: My Town (Documentary) 

 1984Confronting Tobacco (Documentary) 

 1981Gramayan (Documentary) 

 1979Nirnaya (Documentary) 

 1977Tobacco Habits and Oral Cancer (Documentary) 

 1976Computer-aided Design (Documentary) 

Hide Actor (1 credit)

 1971Ashad Ka Ek Din
Kalidasa

Hide Second Unit Director or Assistant Director (1 credit)

 1976Shaque (assistant director) 

Hide Producer (1 credit)

 2004Pravahi (Documentary short) (executive producer) 

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Star Sign:

 Scorpio

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Arun Khopkar

Arun Khopkar obtained his Diploma in Film Direction from FTII in 1974. He has directed two feature and several non-feature films. His films on arts and artists have won over fifteen national and international awards. He was awarded the Golden Lotus, the highest National Award three times for his short films. His book on the film director Guru Dutt won the National Award for the best book on cinema. He is a film scholar and has contributed papers on film aesthetics to international journals. He is an internationally recognised authority on Eisenstein. He has taught film theory and practice at various institutions like Moscow School for Advanced Cinematography, Jawaharlal Nehru University, FTII, National School of Drama, etc. He was a Homi Bhabha Fellow. He is widely travelled and knows French, German, Russian, Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, English, Italian and Japanese.

Retrospective on Arun Khopkar

Posted by Magic Lantern Movies LLP on January 19, 2011

As a part of its retrospective section, Persistence Resistance: edge of visual narrative, 2011presents an Arun Khopkar retrospective at the 4th edition of the festival to be held from 8th February to 10 February at the India International Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi.

Arun Khopkar is an award winning filmmaker based in Mumbai who has directed two feature and several non-feature films that have won awards globally. He is also a three time recipient of the Golden Lotus, the highest National Film Award for his short films. He is also an engaged film scholar, teaching theory and practices at academic institutes and has contributed theoretical papers about film aesthetics amongst other subjects to both national and international journals. His book on Guru Dutt in Marathi has won a National Award for the best book on cinema.

A graduate in film direction from FTII, in 1974, Arun Khopkar’s short films are outstanding examples of interaction between cinema and the other art forms. Khopkar’s varied interests in music, art, dance, poetry and architecture amongst others find a cinematic expression in his films.

His films do not simply “document” the art forms and the individual artist’s work in the same but rather as he says, "Common to all my films on art is an effort to use the language of cinema -variable lighting, lensing, camera movements and the rhythm of montage- to bring out those aspects of my themes, which are not on the surface.

"These could be ways of viewing the work, use of light as a metaphor or sound effects to build an acoustic space that holds a dialogue with the visual space, supporting, contradicting and complementing it. The visuals often enter into a tangential relationship with the theme, instead of illustrating it. In a certain sense, they are documentaries, if one is to use the world to include documenting visions of the world that have inspired art practitioners of contemporary India.”

Thus, all his films are an exploration into the aesthetics of the cinematic medium itself, a medium that draws upon the history of the cultural practices of India.

The retrospective brings together six of his short films from his early work Figures of Thought (1990) which is a short film on the work three contemporary painters: Bhupen Khakkar, Vivan Sundaram and Nalini Malani to his most recent work Volume Zero (2009) which is an hour long video on the life and the works of Charles Correa, a leading architect. The festival will also screen Rasikapriya (2000) and Lokapriya (2000), two films on music, the first dealing with the classical Hindustani form and the second with the popular Bollywood form. Both these films seek and succeed in finding appropriate cinematic forms to capture the landscape of musical traditions in India. Sanchari (1992) narrates the sensuality of the Bharatnatyam dance form through a cinematic dialogue with Leela Samson. The festival will also screen Khopkar’s 2002 film Narayan Gangaram Surve, about the life and work of the eminent Marathi poet Narayan Surve.

Films to be screened

• Figures of Thought, 1990 (30 mins)
• Sanchari 1992 (30 mins)
• Rasikapriya 2000 (30 mins)
• Lokapriya 2000 (30 mins)
• Narayan Gangaram Surve 2002 (45 mins)
• Volume Zero 2009 (59 mins)

Retrospective on Kim Longinotto

Persistence Resistance: Edge of visual narrative 2011 brings together a retrospective of seven films of internationally acclaimed documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto as a part of its retrospective section consisting of three documentary filmmakers at the 4th edition of the festival to be held from 8th February to 10 February at the India International Centre...