There’s nothing called ‘Indian cinema’, it’s always Indian cinemas, says Girish Kasaravalli

Thrissur: Legendary Kannada filmmaker Girish Kasaravalli has questioned the logic behind branding films in different Indian languages as one cultural entity. He said the very use of the term “Indian cinema” is wrong and it should be “Indian cinemas”.
He was interacting with writer and film critic C S Venkiteswaran at the second edition of Peruvanam International Village Festival which began at Sreelakam Convention Centre in Peruvanam on Friday.

“I'm not saying in the name of supporting Indian cinema you should support Hindi cinema. I'm not at all for that. For me, Bollywood cinema is not Indian cinema at all,” he said. He cited how the early Kannada new wave films discussed the theme of caste oppression under the influence of socialist leader Rammanohar Lohia while the subject was almost absent in Malayalam cinema. “When you talk about Indian cinema you talk about it as one cultural entity. It is not,” Kasaravalli asserted.

In response to a question on the ‘new wave’ film movement, he drew a distinction between the nature of new wave films made in different parts of the world.

Indian new wave is quite different from the French new wave. Every country has a new wave. Brazilian has cinema nouveau and German has their own new wave. So, Indian new wave has nothing to do either with existentialism or with Godard. But, Indian new wave, I still think, has not lost completely. In small pockets, still people are making interesting short films. Unfortunately, those films are not coming to the mainstream. You don’t get to read about them, you don’t get to watch them,” he said.

“This is a global phenomenon. Once the world has become a globalised market, or what you say ‘world is a village’, I think we have lost the uniqueness of each culture. That uniqueness is gone. Say, the films made by Kurosawa or Ozu had distinct Japanese stamp. Today’s Korean cinema does not have that. But you can’t blame the filmmaker because the society itself has lost its uniqueness,” he added.

He said Kannada literature, social movements and Yakshagana had a huge influence on him as a filmmaker. He also recollected how he ended up in the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII) after obtaining a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy and how the premier film school shaped his perspectives.

“One day I made a small mistake and one of the professors scolded me, saying that if you don’t know all these things why did you get into FTII? You have deprived one student of his seat. That's the day I decided I must study. That day I stepped out of the classroom and straight away I went into the library and came out of it only after three years. I tried to understand what art is, what is literature what is cinema and all that. Actually, in one sense FTII really shaped my cinematic as well as perception of art,” he said.