2005: Taramati Visanji Award for contribution to art and culture.
2002: Cinematographers’ Combine honored him with a trophy (miniature Mitchel camera) for his writing and curatorial work for the cinema.
1989: The International Federation of Film Clubs honored him with a plaque in Germany for his persistent and imaginative work in the Indian film society movement.
Amrit Gangar is an Indian film scholar, historian, critic, curator and writer from Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.
He worked as consultant content developer for the National Museum of Indian Cinema set up by the National Council of Science Museums in Mumbai. He was actively involved with India’s film society movement and was secretary of Screen Unit, and Regional Secretary of Federation of Film Societies’[1] Western Region. Curator of Experimenta[2] (first in Mumbai and now in Bangalore), Shai Heredia in an interview with Amrit Gangar, draws the history of Screen Unit and the film society movement in India over the years; he is credited to have been one of the pioneers in ushering in the serious film appreciation in Mumbai. He has also been holding film appreciation workshops all over Gujarat and at various educational and institutional spaces in India. Gangar has been working in the field of cinema in various capacities for over three decades.
Gangar at Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute in Kolkata, 2016.
He has been part of production and creative teams of numerous feature, documentary, short films and video installations by artists from Europe and Scandinavia. For the past several years, he has been engaged with his new theoretical-philosophical concept Cinema of Prayoga or Cinema Prayoga.[3]
Cinema of Prayoga: A New Concept
Amrit Gangar has been responsible for coining, developing and theorizing his new theoretical concept of 'Cinema of Prayoga' or 'Cinema Prayoga'[4] that aims at substituting and expanding the generally accepted Euro-American-centric term the 'Experimental Film' while celebrating the cinematographic idiom deeply located in the polyphony of Indian philosophy and cultural imagination, including the perception of 'time' and 'space'. Since his first public presentation of 'Cinema of Prayoga' at the Experimenta, Mumbai in 2005, he has been presenting it at various venues and fora in India and abroad. Films by Amit Dutta, Ashish Avikunthak, Vipin Vijay, Kabir Mohanty and Arghya Basu fall within the ambit of this concept.[5]
Authorship: Books – English, and other Indian languages (Original or Tr.)
Roopantar, adaptations from literature to cinema, Arunodaya Prakashan, Ahmedabad – in Gujarati, 2014.[6][1]
Walter Kaufmann: The Music that Still Rings at Dawn, Every Dawn, Goethe Institute,[7] Mumbai, 2013.
Also published Ritwik Ghatak: A Return to the Epic, the first major book in English on Ritwik Ghatak by Ashish Rajadhyaksha on behalf of Screen Unit, Bombay,1982
Gujarati Cinema: At 1982 (with Manilal Gala), Screen Unit, Mumbai.
Edited the main and retrospective catalogues of the Mumbai International Festival for Documentary, Short and Animation Films from
1990 uptil1998, as also of the Children’s Film Festival of India, and of the National Film Development Corporation.
Part of Publications
Unveiling Desire: Fallen Women in Literature, Culture, and Films of the East, Eds. Devaleena Das and Colette Morrow, Rutgers – Forthcoming
The Unposted Letter, A collection of articles by and on Shri Goverdhan Panchal, an expert on Sanskrit Theatre, Architecture, Ed. Hasmukh Baradi, TMC, Ahmedabad, 2014.
Kalaveethi, Eds. Ajaysingh Chouhan, et al., Pranav Prakashan, Ahmedabad, 2013.
Ritwik Ghatak: A Return to the Epic, Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Screen Unit, Mumbai, 1982.
Essays, Poems contributed to Books, Catalogues and Journals: English, Gujarati, Kachchhi, Marathi, Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, French, Spanish, Finnish, Danish, Norwegian, German, Swish, Swedish, Russian, Persian (Tr.) (Select)
Buddhadeb Dasgupta: Poet of Celluloid, Federation of Film Societies of India, Kolkata, 2014.
Routledge Handbook of Indian Cinema, Eds. K. Moti Gokulsing and Wimal Dissanayake, Routledge, London, 2013.
Figures, Facts, Feeling: A Direct Diasporic Dialogue, Parthiv Shah, 2000.
Images of India in European Cinema, Goethe Institute, Mumbai, 2000. (long essay)
Germany in Upheaval: A Series of Documentary Films, Goethe Institute, Mumbai, 1999 (long essay)
DEFA: Documentary Films, Goethe Institute, Mumbai, 1998. (long essay).
Voices of Emergency: An All India Anthology of Protest Poetry of the 1975-77 Emergency, Ed. John Oliver Perry, Popular Prakashan, Bombay, 1983.
Essays and poems published in numerous other catalogues, journals and dailies (English, Gujarati, Malayalam, etc.) including the Cinemaya, Osian’s Cinemaya, Art India, Lensight, the journal of the Film & Television Institute of India, Danish Film Institute Journal, Farbas Trimasik, Etad, Tathapi, Pratyaksha, Sameepe, Mumbai Samachar, Janmabhoomi Pravasi, Nav Gujarat Times, etc.
Conceptualization and Curatorship of Programs (Select): India and Abroad
Kshaya of Akasa is also the Kshyaya of Chetana: Some Reflections on the shrinking of Sky in Cinema, Pondicherry, 2016.
Cinema of Prayoga, Danish Film Institute, Copenhagen: Indian Film Program, March 2012 .
Tribute to Mani Kaul, 12th Osian’s Cine-Fan Film Festival, 2012, New Delhi. For the first time the practitioners (camerapersons, soundpersons, editors and production persons) came together to discuss aesthetics and the philosophy of Mani Kaul’s cinematography.
Hosted and curated (along with Neville Tuli) Deewar: Celebrating 100 Years of Cinematic Heritage of India, 12th Osian’s Cine-Fan Film Festival, 2012, New Delhi.
Cinema of Prayoga, Conference at the Viswabharati University, Santiniketan, 2011.
Chelsea College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London, Moving Image Art and Global Media Spectacle, June 2011.
Centre Pompidou, Paris: Indian Experimental Films, June 2011.
Saat Sarjak. Saat Samvad (Seven Creators. Seven Dialogues), a seven-month-long (monthly) program on Cinema of Prayoga, National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai, 2008.
National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai: Short Films about Sufism (2006).
Arts Reverie, Ahmedabad: Fana’a, 2007 – Sufi Soul: A Bouquet of International Short Films; Sufi Films, Ahmedabad Art Festival, 2012 (shown at the National Institute of Design).
Katha Centre for Film Studies, Mumbai: Curatorial Workshops-numerous.
Katha Centre for Film Studies, Mumbai: Chalchitra Chawlchitra: Conceived and curated a program of films around Mumbai’s chawls.
Bollywood Film Posters: Worked with the Norwegian Film Institute, Oslo, Norway in putting together hand painted billboards and writing a lead article for its exhibition, continuing from August 2007.
INDIA: Bollywood and Living Gods: Worked with the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm, Sweden in putting together visual material pertaining to popular Hindi cinema within the exhibition (September 2007 – March 2008) concept.
Cinema of Prayoga (the term he coined to substitute the Anglo-American Experimental or Avantgarde Film.) Tate Modern, London presented this program along with a seminar in which he also spoke, 2006.
Devi Diva - Images of woman in Indian cinema, a short compilation of film excerpts, with Berenice Ellena, during an exhibition at Musee des Arts Asiatiques, Nice, France, 2006.
Kali: A program of Indian cutting edge short films about Kali presented at Gallery Espace Croise, Roubaix, France. It was part of the bigger event about Mumbai / India in Lille, France,2007.
India Express: Presented an Indian film program in aesthetical context at the exhibition of Indian popular art at the Helsinki City Art Museum, Finland. Also helped organize a workshop by the Bollywood billboard painters during the exhibition.
Bollywood in Switzerland: Presented a film program in historical context and helped the exhibition organized by the Museum of Design in Zurich, Switzerland, 2001.
Dogma film program for the International Film Festival of Kerala in Trivandrum, Kerala.
Experimenta 2005: First time presented his new theoretical concept of Cinema of Prayoga, at this first of its kind cutting edge film festival in Mumbai.
Kala Ghoda Artfest: Curated film programs continuously for four years until 1998. Was commissioning editor for several short films on Kala Ghoda area made by different professional and amateur filmmakers, Mumbai, 1999.
Mumbai International Film Festival of Documentary, Short & Animation Films (MIFF). Curated retrospective programs from 1990 until 1996.
Curatorial Advisor, National Curatorial Program initiated by the India Foundation for the Arts and the Katha Centre for Film Studies, Mumbai.
125th Birth Anniversary of Charlie Chaplin and the Chaplin Town, Adipur, Kachchh, 2014.
Five Devdas Films and One Novella, National Book Fair, Ahmedabad, 2014.
Indian Cinema: One Hundred Years of Fortitude, Hyderabad Literary Festival, 2014.
Indian Cinema: One Hundred Years of Fortitude, Whistling Woods International Film School, Mumbai, 2013.
Indian Cinema: One Hundred Years of Fortitude, as part of the Key-Note Address, International Seminar on Cinema, St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, 2013.
Cinematographic Symbiosis: Germany and India, Excellence on Tour, DWIH, Kolkata, 2014, Ahmedabad 2013, Mumbai 2013.
Cinematographic Symbiosis: Germany and India, Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, Mumbai 2013.
Cinematographic Symbiosis: Germany and India, Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai, 2013.
Cinema of Prayoga: Contemplating a Cinematographic Moment, York University, Toronto, Canada, 2013.
Cinema of Prayoga, No Cultural Boundaries, York University and SAVAC, Toronto, Canada, 2013.
The Moving Image Looped to be Mukt! – the Cinema of Prayoga conscience, the University of the Arts, London, 2011.
Film Workshops in India and Elsewhere
Over the years, conducted film appreciation and film and literature related workshops in Surat, Palanpur, Bharuch, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Sadra, Bombay and other places.[12][13][14]
Several other such workshops are underway. National seminar ‘Roopantar’ (Literature to Cinema) organized in Nadiad was the outcome of the ‘Roopantar’ series in the journal Pratyaksha. Delivered the key-note address at the Nadiad conference. Was invited to Asmita Parva-14 (14 – 18 April 2011) at Mahua by Morari Bapu to present a talk on film kala nu anubhavan with reference to cinematographic experience. The program was televised internationally on Astha channel.
Conducted several Indian film workshops in different gymnasiums (schools) and institutions in Denmark.
2012: One of the active members of the organizing group on ‘Classic Incantations: The German Film Orchestra Babelberg performs A.R. Rahman,’ a massive musical that showcased over a hundred orchestral musicians from the German Film Orchestra Babelsberg and KM Music Conservatory, Chennai and travelled across five Indian metros. It was exclusively presented by Lapp Group; conceived and coordinated by Goethe Institute, Mumbai.[16]
Students’ Centre, Zagreb, Croatia – Cinema of Prayoga and Indian Experimental Films.
Royal College of Art, Copenhagen, Denmark; Yale University, New Haven, USA; Columbia University, New York, USA.
Shri Rajmohan Gandhi’s Asia Plateau, Panchgani, Maharashtra – lectured on Indian cinema to students from various North American universities.
Asmita Parva – 14, Mahua, Gujarat, a presentation on anubhāvan of cinema.
Goethe Institute (Max Mueller Bhavan), Mumbai.[18][19]
University of the Arts London, June 2011.
Georges Pompidou Centre, Paris, June 2011
Kalabhavana, Santiniketan, August 2011.
Several conferences and seminars in India and abroad, including in Australia, Sri Lanka, Iran, etc.
Archiving / Databasing
Was responsible for discovering and restoring the historic and rare documentary India’s Struggle for National Shipping by Paul Zils
Conceived, developed and set up a comprehensive easy-to-retrieve database of the Films Division’s library of documentary films, etc. from 1948 to 1993, about 9000 documentary, short and animation films (with Subhash Chheda).
Mumbai and the Informal City, presented at the International Conference of Architects and Town Planners, Mumbai, 2010.
Harbour Line Stories, Etc., for Cell – Initiators of Incidents, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. About the city of Mumbai – including some historic episodes, e.g. explosion in a steamer in 1944 in Bombay harbour.
Temples in Trains, produced and directed, a documentary about Mumbai’s local trains and commuters ingeniously create temples inside compartments and sing songs every morning. (contd.)
Kandivli: A River Saga, produced and directed this 6-minute film about how a pure-water river has turned into a filthy nullah.
Bandra in Bollywood. Compiling film excerpts from films that show Bandra as location as a historic document – for the Bandra Festival.
Representation of Bombay in Films: An hour-long compilation of films recording and representing the city of Bombay, for the Urban Research & Development Institute.
