Sruti Harihara Subramanian, a Chennai based advertisement film-maker and cinema archivist, recently won the National Award for Best Arts and Culture Film, for A Far Afternoon: A Painted Saga. A 63-minute documentary on the nonagenarian painter Krishen Khanna, the film also won an award for its musical score, by duo Arvind-Jaisankar.
Sruti has worked as an Associate Director on several mainstream films in Tamil and Telugu, such as Yavarum Nalam and Panjaa. Speaking to Silverscreen.in about the concept behind A Far Afternoon, she said, “The Piramal Art Foundation got in touch with me saying that Mr. Kishen Khanna has begun work on a painting, and the painting has the potential to be archived. Only after reaching his residence in Delhi and seeing the kind of material he was working on, did we get the idea of making a full-fledged documentary around it. Very few people get access into the mind of an artiste. The very fact that Mr. Khanna is so charming, with so many stories to tell, compelled us to weave a story around it.
“We did prior research on him, the news articles and features that had carried stories on him. We didn’t want the stories to be repeated. The process of the art work being created, [capturing that] was unique to us. So we decided to keep the piece of art as the centerpiece of the film, and through that we get glimpses into the life of Mr. Khanna. It is not a typical documentary, it is more like a biography.”
Arvind Murali, one of the film’s composers told Silverscreen.in that he had no inkling that the film was in contention for a National Award. The news of actually winning had come as a complete surprise. He said, “We do music for ad films, documentaries and video games. Music for documentaries is a tricky thing. Some content lends itself more to music, whereas sometimes, music just needs to be in the background.
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“When it comes to A Far Afternoon, it needed something meditative and minimalist. It is about one man’s journey and something very personal, so it did not require something grand. Sruti conveyed to us what Mr. Khanna’s impressions were. We were told that he likes carnatic and western classical music. So we played his favorite raaga on a western instrument, like the cello.”
Sruti Harihara Subramanian is also a trustee of The Cinema Resource Centre (TCRC) in Alwarpet, Chennai which preserves and displays cinema related memorablia (posters, tickets, lyric books and more), dating back to 1930. Here is our interview with Sruti, about the memories and stories around TCRC, and her plans to expand it into a cinema museum.
Feature Image Courtesy : www.newindianexpress.com