Beyond Bollywood, India’s cinema also includes vibrant regional industries and an alternative tradition: Parallel Cinema.

Emerging in the 1950s and aspiring to more than entertainment, Parallel Cinema broke away from studio sets and into towns and villages to explore human life in all its contradictory richness. Perhaps its most famous representative is Satyajit Ray – among the most celebrated and influential filmmakers of all time – but its protagonists are wonderfully diverse, each conducting original experiments and probing difficult cultural and philosophical questions.

Parallel Cinema drew inspiration from Indian literature, as well as French Poetic Realism, Italian neorealism and India’s own tradition of realism in silent cinema. It overlapped with the French and Japanese New Wave movements, evolved through the 70s and 80s, and its influence continues today.

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, the National Film Development Corporation Consulate General of India, the Swami Vivekananda Cultural Centre, Cinema Reborn and Riverside Theatres are delighted to partner for ‘Parallel Cinema of India’. Our program features two works by major figures: Mani Kaul’s Duvidha (1973) and Mrinal Sen’s Suddenly, One Day (1989).

Feb 28, 6pm: Welcome Ceremony + 'Suddenly, One Day'

Welcome Ceremony with food and drinks from 6-6:50pm, followed by an introduction to the film by programmer and critic Virat Nehru.

Suddenly, One Day
By Mrinal Sen
Duration: (1hr 45min)

Do we really know the people we love? Memories collide and resentments bubble to surface in Mrinal Sen’s contemplative family drama, which begins with the disappearance of an aging patriarch on a rainy evening. Anchored almost entirely within the domestic space of a bourgeois family, the film is tautly paced but never static, gliding around rooms and through doorways as it explores the contrasting psychological struggles of its characters with great precision. Based on a novel by Ramapada Chowdhury.

Mar 1, 11:30am: 'Duvidha' & Special Panel Discussion

Film screening followed by panel discussion with Partho Sen-Gupta, Adrienne McKibbon, Dr Aprajita Sarcar and Emie Roy, moderated by James Vaughan.

Duvidha
By Mani Kaul
Duration: (1hr 22min)

Mani Kaul was a visionary. His fourth feature is an exquisitely atmospheric ghost story – at the time quite unlike anything else in world cinema. Considered by many to be his masterpiece, it is a cursed love triangle of otherworldly intimacy, in which conventional narrative is replaced by shadowy glances, beguiling soundscapes and the director’s distinctive inner monologues of existential disquiet. The film was critically acclaimed and won the National Film Award for Best Direction.

Accessibility

In Hindi with English subtitles

Wheelchair accessible

Companion Card accepted

Assistive Hearing system available (FM)

Find out more about accessibility at Riverside Theatres

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