Project Cinema City

Last year I went to town (city centre)… I saw the train line, the sea, tall buildings, the Gateway of India… roads… they looked exactly like films. I told my children – see, we had seen all these in films.

Sushila, a 35 years old film viewer on visiting the iconic locations that are often featured in films on Bombay, 2011.

We get Rs. 2000 to hide our faces and Rs. 1000 to show them…

Reshma, a woman stunt artist in Bombay cinema on how she earns more as a body double than by appearing in an original role, 2005

The greatness of cinema has ended with the abolition of B/W prints.

Chiranjilal Sharma, a dealer of waste celluloid prints on the loss of the opportunity to extract silver from the discarded B/W prints (as celluloid prints went colour), 2009.

The plinth of Samrat Cinema was so huge that when it was laid in 1975 we thought the Govt. is making a shelter for our cattle during the monsoon rain.

A resident of Goregaon East on how a movie theatre was the first large building construction in the then primarily pastoral land, 2010.

It doesn’t matter from where you get into the train but it would always reach Bombai in the morning. You never reach here in the night. It is always in the morning that you begin your struggle in the city.

Dhanajay “Chandragupt” Kulkarni, a night watchman who aspires to be a film writer, on migration to the dream city, 2009.

…it is not a lie, in a way – the closing of the mills has ruined many lives. But first you destroy everything and then make a picture about it – is it good?

Leelabai Salunke, 75 year old former worker of a textile mill, on a feature film made on the plights of the workers of closed textile mills.

PROJECT CINEMA CITY: RESEARCH ART AND DOCUMENTARY PRACTICES 2009-2014

A Project of Majlis Culture Centre with KRVIA (Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute of Architecture and Environment Studies)

Curator / Producer: Madhusree Dutta
Co-curator for art segment: Archana Hande
Visual Designer: Kausik Mukhopadhyay
Co-curator for architecture segment: Rohan Shivkumar
Research and Production Team: Apurva Parikh, Afrah Shafiq, Paroma Sadhana and Samma Blu

Collaborators

National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Public Service Broadcast Trust (PSBT), Max Mueller Bhavan (Goethe Institute), SNDT Women’s University, Tulika Books

Support

Ford Foundation, HIVOS: people unlimited