Craft, Ritual and Cinema: Mani Kaul’s Mati Manas

Specially Curated Sessions of Film Analysis and Film Appreciation as a part of Open Space Documentary Arts Programme. 29th-30th November 2025_ONLINE14:30 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 uniqueContinue reading “Craft, Ritual and Cinema: Mani Kaul’s Mati Manas”

Composing Reality: Structures of Mediation in Documentary Editing

Cinema Praxis Series14:30 hrs IST, 8th & 9th November, 2025, 02 days OVERVIEW:This course approaches documentary editing as a way of composing the impressions of reality, towards emerging discourse and experience, through discovering within the images the rhythms and contradictions of the world itself. Every cut, pause, continuation, or rupture becomes a thought about: howContinue reading “Composing Reality: Structures of Mediation in Documentary Editing”

Temporality and the Sensation of Cinematic Time

Cinema Praxis Series23-24 August, 2025, 14.30 – 18.20 IST, online OVERVIEW:The relationship between cinema and time has always been a central enigma of the moving image.More than any other art form, cinema is bound to temporality, not simply recording events, butimpressing upon us the sensation of time itself. Time in cinema is never only aContinue reading “Temporality and the Sensation of Cinematic Time”

Spatial Poetics in Nonfiction Cinema

3rd August, 2025, 01 day, 04-05 hours OVERVIEW:This intensive online session would explore how cinematic practice can construct, encounter, and transform space, not merely as background, but as an active participant in the nonfictional experience. At the intersection of observation, conceptualisation, cinematographic choices, and the rhythmic textures of editing and sound, this course examines howContinue reading “Spatial Poetics in Nonfiction Cinema”

Film-Philosophy with ‘Diary of a Country Priest’ by Robert Bresson

Specially Curated Sessions of Film Analysis and Film Appreciation 9th-10th November 2024_ONLINE14:30 to 18:30 IST with Deb Kamal Ganguly COURSE OVERVIEW :In the history of cinema, it is a rarity that the creators like Robert Bresson arrived and illuminated the possibility of cinematic creation as unique artistic and philosophical achievement on behalf of the frailty ofContinue reading “Film-Philosophy with ‘Diary of a Country Priest’ by Robert Bresson”

Space, Time, Subjectivity in Cinema

(With special emphasis on Documentary) as a part of OSDA and Hands on Filmmaking programme, 24 15:00 – 18.30 hrs IST – 6th and 7th of July, 2024 OverviewWhat is cinema, if it is not accumulation of blocks of space-time manifestations, perceived by camera-eye, heard by the recorder-ear, and arranged by some degree of individuated/collectiveContinue reading “Space, Time, Subjectivity in Cinema”

Melancholia in Godard’s Film Socialisme as Foucauldian Meta-subjective Dissent against Governmentality – by Debkamal ganguly

16:30 IST @ Auroville Film Institute, India Space, Bharat Nivas also, Online streaming via G-Meet. Overview:This presentation has been part of recently concluded international ‘Foucault Congress’, Kolkata Chapter, focussing on Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality in the context of South Asia. In this presentation with reference to Jean-Luc Godard’s post-cinematic work ‘Film Socialisme’, some gesturesContinue reading “Melancholia in Godard’s Film Socialisme as Foucauldian Meta-subjective Dissent against Governmentality – by Debkamal ganguly”

Psychology and Cinema: Through a Glass Darkly

Film Analysis and Film Appreciation8th and 9th June, 2024 | ONLINE OVERVIEW:The cinema universe of the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman attained unprecedented artistic and expressive brilliance with the film Through a Glass Darkly (1961), the first offering of the trilogy with the unusual modernist thematic of ‘God’s silence’.Exploring the psychological depths of the femaleContinue reading “Psychology and Cinema: Through a Glass Darkly”

What is CONTINUITY?

Exploring Continuity Principles in Cinema? 30th April 2024,  14:30 to 18:30 IST _Online OVERVIEW:This session would illustrate the historical stages of development of various aspects of Continuity Principles, mainly practiced with great success in classical Hollywood era. These principles got gradually adapted, modified, challenged in other cultures of filmmaking in the world. It would beContinue reading “What is CONTINUITY?”

The Documentary Impulse

With Deb Kamal Ganguly25th to 29th March, 2024 ; 14:30 to 18:30 IST_Online Duration: 5 days, 4 hours per day COURSE OVERVIEW:This course is designed primarily for the regular participants as one of the initial modules for the one-year multi space documentary program offered by AVFI. At the same time the course is also offeredContinue reading “The Documentary Impulse”