The film will be screened in three venues on April 5 and 6
Besides offering the best regional film award to Thithi by Raam Reddy and Swarna Kamal to Dr. Rajkumar Samagra Charitre by Doddahulluru Rukkoji, the 63{+r}{+d}National Film Awards held out another honour for Kannada cinema.
Life in Metaphors – a portrait of Girish Kasaravalli by O.P. Srivastava bagged the Rajat Kamal in the non-feature film category. In the citation, the jury described the film as ‘philosophical images of life and beyond’.
The documentary will be screened at three venues on April 5 and 6.
Mr. Srivastava is an investment banker-turned-film maker. He was enamoured by Girish Kasaravalli and his oeuvre of work. Noted cinematographer G.S. Bhaskar helped him create a portrait of Mr. Kasaravalli.
A journey
The director describes the film as a journey into the world of Girish Kasaravalli and to understand the language, grammar and purpose of story-telling through the visual medium. “Kasaravalli’s films are an extension of his persona. Instead of making his films ideological, he approaches them with a philosophical point of view,” says Mr. Srivastava.
Challenges
It took Mr. Srivastava two years to make this film, including one year on research. The challenge he faced was the absence of digitalised prints of Kasaravalli’s films. The video clips available were of poor quality. “Even now, prints of his Aakramana and Bannadavesa are not available,” he regrets.
Rooted in culture
For Mr. Srivastava, all films of Mr. Kasaravalli are rooted in local culture, but they have travelled beyond boundaries.
A no-frills and down-to-earth approach to film making has earned Mr. Kasaravalli the reputation of creating a unique cinematic language, which excels in cultural realism in Indian cinema.
Master class
Mr. Srivastava met Mr. Kasaravalli for the first time at the Goa International Film Festival in 2012 where his ‘man of metaphors’ conducted a master class. After an interaction, he realised that Mr. Kasaravalli was the kind of film maker he wanted to be and sought permission to work with him and learn film making.
He travelled to various places, including Kasaravalli’s village, during the making of Life in Metaphors and met people, who inspired and with whom Kasaravalli worked with over the years. “I have also accompanied Kasaravalli during his shooting schedule,” he explained.
The jury described the film as ‘philosophical images of life
and beyond’
