 Apurba "Apu" Roy, Pather Panchali (1955) The truth is, blogging can be tedious. I confess. It seems sacrilege for a writer not to keep a blog. I prefer micro-blogging (Twitter) for the community feeling, engagement and immediacy. It feels like plugging into the zeitgeist of the day. But there is a blog on this website waiting for nourishment, so here I am with musings for 2020.
In 2019, I wrote a feature and a couple of shorts. None of them produced (yet) but the process was humbling and confidence building at once. There is magic in getting into the mind of a character and putting them through the trials and tribulations of life. Behind every magic trick there's preparation, hard work and craft. 2019 taught me to trust and enjoy the process and so it is in 2020. Someone wise suggested we ought to create more media than we consume. Contrary to this, I plan to watch 202 films in 2020. I think "active" watching with the intention of learning from the masters will only aid my creative output (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!). Here is my progress so far. https://www.themoviedb.org/list/129604 Satyajit Ray is a genius by the way. Have a look at the Apu trilogy. Ray has taken me down the rabbit hole of the social realism of Bengali cinema which I'm keen to watch more of. The photo above is young Apu from Pather Pachali (1955). On the creative front, I'm working with a few collaborators to make a couple of shorts. Many aspiring filmmakers use the short form as a springboard to bigger and better things but I approach it as a piece of art in its own right. I'm also planning subsequent drafts of the feature I wrote in 2019, "I See You", and start work on a second feature. It would be remiss of me not to mention the tectonic shifts going on in the world. Climate change has shifted from "trusting the science" to a clear and present danger. The forces opposing meaningful action are the same as those manufacturing consent for war and opposing the fight for racial, social and environmental justice. Narrative and counter-narrative is the weapon of choice. Julian Assange once said that "if wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth". In 2020, he is still a political prisoner for the "crime" of arming people with truth and knowledge. Director, Jean-Luc Godard described cinema as "truth, 24 frames per second". As filmmakers, now more than ever, truth should be at the forefront of our work.
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