Specially Curated Sessions of Film Analysis and Film Appreciation
as a part of Open Space Documentary Arts Programme.
29th-30th November 2025_ONLINE
14:30 to 18:30 IST
with Deb Kamal Ganguly
COURSE OVERVIEW :
Hovering curiously between the spectrums of documentary and fiction in different intensities, Mati Manas (Mind of Clay, 1985, 92 min) by Mani Kaul is a unique cinematic ‘assemblage’ (courtesy Gilles Deleuze) within the universe of diverse pottery traditions prevalent in India. Going beyond the usual objectivity of documentation and representation of various pottery traditions and potters’ guilds found in various parts of India, the film highlights the presence of earthen craft objects and artifacts of various kinds at the crossroads of mythic imaginings, grounded articulations of the ‘crude matter’ and the technology, rituals of sacred codes and those of everydayness and utility, and also the creative ambivalence of secular pursuits of field research and museumization.
The course would primarily focus on the methods of cinematic formations with multiple subjectivities, achieved through a process of selection, combination and intermeshing of ‘visible’ and ‘statable’, created by certain modalities of ‘cinematic acts’ and fusing them at times with gleaned and retold chains of mythic fragments, resourced from diverse sources (e.g. the seminal book by Pupul Jayakar, The Earthen Drum, 1980).
The discussion on the film would likely to be a potent situation to contemplate about a series of new kinds of images, ‘artifactual images’, where the supposedly static and lifeless craft objects are animated and dynamized with various kinds of pulsations and temporalities to relate the fleeting sense of being ‘modern’, being at the ‘moment of present’ with the processes of ‘becoming’ since deep forgotten times. Mati Manas itself shows collages of mythic episodes, crafts and rituals so that each new event may blur and may transform the memory of the previous one and the series before that, hinting possibly towards a gradual built up of forgetting of conscious memory about the progression of the film, resulting in incremental development of collective subconscious at the same time, initiated by the affective loops of the images and sequences. The film thus collapses space and time: distant places merge into one continuous landscape, and even still pots become animated in an ongoing flow. In doing so, Kaul’s cinema evokes broader cultural theories of ritual and modernity, showing how ancient myths and art- forms are reborn in the present ‘moment’ as a continuous process of cultural becoming.
PREREQUISITES : None
MODE OF TEACHING:
In the session, sequences from the film will be shown and discussed in depth. Also reading material will be shared during the course.
FACULTY PROFILE:
An alumnus from Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (SRFTI), Kolkata, DebKamal Ganguly is an independent filmmaker, researcher and teacher of cinematic arts. He has taught for 08 years (2012-2020) and designed curriculum in Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune, in the departments of Film Editing, Film Direction and Screen Studies; and as a guest faculty in National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, Flame University, Pune, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar. Ganguly’s works have been published under special curator-ship from Lowave, Paris; his video art featured in the exhibition ‘Indian Highway’ and showcased in galleries of various cities of Europe and Asia. His films done in the capacity of editor, script-writer and sound designer have been shown in competitive sections of various international festivals and received recognition, including ‘Tiger Award for Shorts’ in Rotterdam (IFFR 2007). Ganguly has presented papers in various international and national seminars and conferences on various themes related to cinema, Deleuze studies, visual art, interfaces of art practices, translation studies, collective memory, Bengal studies, Media studies, pedagogy of cinema, film editing as a discipline, immersive sound etc including CARA-CILECT conference in Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg (2018), CILECT conference in VGIK, Moscow (2019), Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater (2019). He is a participant of an international project for artistic research involving BRICS countries, being the coordinator for India (2018).
BASELINE CONTRIBUTION TO CONFIRM PARTICIPATION:
₹ 1200 – For Indian Participants
€ 25 – For International Participants
(We invite you to contribute over and above the baseline – voluntarily, if you wish)
CERTIFICATES:
Digital certificates of participation will be issued.
QUERIES:
For queries, if any, please write to: filminstitute@auroville.org.in
or call / message +91 9969879319 (whatsapp and telegram only)
Auroville Film Institute 