The stark, uncluttered, black-and-white facade of Husain's Cinema Ghar, located in Hyderabad's upscale Banjara Hills, has a clear rationale. The barefoot maverick of Indian art wants to take cinema back to its roots. 'Technology,' he says, 'has robbed cinema of its soul.' An annual festival of experimental, silent, black-and-white films will initiate a process of recovery.
The celebration of the Pure Image apart, it'll be Madhuri Dixit all the way. An active partner in the project, she'll frequently conduct acting and dance workshops. And she will permanently be on the museum's walls. But there seems to be more to Husain's vision here. A clutch of tributes to Bunuel, Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray, a few of the painter's earliest posters (there's one of P.C. Barua's Zindagi, 1937), a series of shots of southern film hoardings. 'I don't want Cinema Ghar to become an archive,' says Husain. 'I want it to be a living place, a forum for artists and film people.'
The museum, which houses a well-stocked library of cinema and art books, opened with an exhibition of photographs by film-maker Bimal Roy. The 10-day show ended with the screening of Do Bigha Zamin, in Cinema Ghar's 40-seat auditorium. 'All kinds of films will be screened here,' says Husain.
Traditional Indian art, he points out, rests on the act of telling a story. So does his own work. 'I paint cinematically. Every work of mine narrates a story,' he says. That's why he's drawn to filmic song and dance. 'India's folk and tribal art forms are living entities. A majority of them survive to this day. I want to link them to our popular cinema.' For the future of Indian cinema, seen through the eyes of a painter, lies in the amazing continuum of Indian art.
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