Nina Shivdasani Rovshen Sugati (born 15 May 1946, in Karachi, Undivided India), also known as NinaSugati SR[1][2] and NinaSugati SR Shivdasani Rovshen[3] is an Indian filmmaker and visual artist, best known for her arthouse film Chhatrabhang (1975).
Life and career[edit | edit source]
She started out as a painter, but later turned to photography. She is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts in New York.[4][5][6] She has exhibited her paintings and her photographs under the title Conceptual Art Imageographs.[7] She is problaby the first Indian experimental filmmaker.[8]
Her arthouse film Chhatrabhang (The Divine Plan) won her the first FIPRESCI Award for an Indian film at the 26th Berlin International Film Festival in 1976 and a Maharashtra State Film Award in 1975. The seventy-five-minute color documentary about a caste dilemma in rural India was shot by cameraman Apurba Kishore Bir in two weeks among villagers and edited by Shivdasani over a year. This film is accompanied by music by Edgar Varèse and a commentary written by Vinay Shukla and spoken by Amrish Puri. It was shot on location in Jogiya village and enacted by local villagers.[2] Chhatrabhang is a Marxist critque of the Indian caste (and class) system, strong and immovable as a rock. There is a recurrent shot of a labourer hammering and breaking apart a large rock as a symbol of changing social times. The "divine plan" of the title is that of the Brhamins who make the other castes serve them. This "partisan film"[9] ends with a portrait of Baba Saheb and headlines about the killiings of thousands of Harijans (low caste citizens) for having dared to draw water from wells belonging to the Brahmins.[citation needed]
Her 2021 three-hour-long documentary SWA: Source Within Inner Wealth is an experiental exploration inspired by the Taittiriya Upanishad.[1]
Filmography[edit | edit source]
- Breaking Ground (1971)
- A World of all Intelligence (1972)
- Hope No One’s Listening (1972)
- Something about Transformation & Rediscovery aka The Banana Leaf (1972)
- Chhatrabhang (The Divine Plan) (1975)
- SWA: Source Within Inner Wealth (2021)
- Pragyanam (Consciousness) aka Nadh (Resonance) (2023)
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Source Within Inner Wealth". IMDb.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Nina Shivdasani Rovshen". Nina Shivdasani Rovshen.
- ↑ "NinaSugati SR Shivdasani Rovshen". FilmFreeway.
- ↑ Dhawan, Himanshi (15 June 2008). "Frames Of Life". India Today. Archived from the original on 15 June 2008. Retrieved 21 June 2023.
- ↑ "Der stürzende Thron". www.filmdienst.de (in Deutsch). Retrieved 21 June 2023.
- ↑ Rajadhyaksha, Ashish; Willemen, Paul (10 July 2014). Encyclopedia of Indian Cinema. Routledge. p. 427. ISBN 978-1-135-94325-7.
- ↑ "Frames of Life". India Today. Archived from the original on 15 June 2008.
- ↑ "Nina Shivdasani". Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation.
- ↑ "The Falling Throne". Film Dienst.
See also[edit | edit source]
- Shai Heredia (June 2005): "NINA SHIVDASANI ROVSHEN IN CONVERSATION"
- Ankan Kazi (21 May 2024): "Creating the Imageograph: Nina Sugati SR and the Counter-Cultural Image"
- Ankan Kazi (22 May 2024): "On Broken Ground: Early Short Films by Nina Sugati SR"
- An Exploded View: Panel discussion | 15 May 2021 @ YouTube
- Nancy Adajania (15 December 2020): "There must be a ground down there"
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