Kumar Shahani

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A brief biography

Avijit Ghosh, March 26, 2024: The Times of India

Kumar Shahani, master of arthouse cinema

Director Kumar Shahani, whose complex and deeply-layered works such as Maya Darpan, Tarang, Khayal Gatha and Char Adhyay enriched and expanded the creative language of arthouse cinema
.

A master of the medium, intellectually as well as technically, Shahani’s vision of cinema was pure. “His work defies labels. In his world of art and aesthetics, there were no limits. Not even the sky. His artistic integrity as a filmmaker was uncompromisable. He was ahead of his time,” said actor Mita Vashisht, who worked with him in “Khayal Gatha (1988)”, and “Kasba (1990)”.


“He was theoretically very sound. There was a lament in his work, a yearning which was almost spiritual,” said filmmaker Sudhir Mishra.


Shahani was born in Larkana, now in Pakistan’s Sindh Province, the town closest to Mohenjo-daro, ancient Indus Valley Civilisation’s primary settlement. PostPartition, his family shifted to Bombay. He learnt cinema from the best. At FTII, Pune, he was taught by film director Ritwik Ghatak (Meghe Dhaka Tara). He also learnt from historian DD Kosambi, apioneer in interdisciplinary studies. In France, where he studied cinema, he assisted the master minimalist Robert Bresson.

He passed away at a Kolkata hospital Feb 2024. He was 83. The filmmaker had age-related health issues, PTI reported.