Interview With Amit Dutta | Towards A Self-reliant Cinema

Capital shapes cinema because certain images can be realised only with sufficient money and resources. Complex mise-en-scène with artistic sets, lighting, properties and costumes requires financial support and only adequate funding can make such visions materially possible.  At the same time, scarcity can sharpen perception as well. When resources are limited, the filmmaker learns to see what already exists. The simplest object, the most ordinary space, and the most immediate gesture become central. In this way, constraints can also produce rigour. Capital therefore works in two directions—on the one hand, it enables scale; and on the other, its absence compels precision. One needs money, of course, but one must not become obedient to it.

Digital tools have made production easier and cheaper. Cameras are accessible and many post-production tools are widely available. However, sustainability remains difficult. It now seems that making a film is easier, but building a life through artistically risky cinema still is not.

Independence is not only a question of money. It is also a structural question. A filmmaker needs continuity, intellectual clarity and a system that allows a sustained journey with inner and outer milestones. Without such support, the idea of independence becomes abstract. The more pressing question may be whether a filmmaker can live independently. Can an independent filmmaker sustain daily life, ageing, medical emergencies and basic dignity without dependence on unstable sources of income? Independence in art collapses if material life remains insecure. Please note that I am not speaking of luxury, only of stability. Cinema may aspire to independence but the survival of the real independent filmmaker remains the real test.

Godard’s observation is, of course, precise, but as a filmmaker I should never forget that even resistance to money can become an aesthetic position (a certain paradoxical beauty that emerges only in the absence of money).

It has never been easy, and even now it remains difficult. The path is marked by uncertainty and anxiety. Yet I chose it and would not change it for anything else. I once read about the practice of alms described in the Buddhist 'Vinaya'. Monks go on a daily alms round and accept whatever is placed in their bowl without complaint, then return to their discipline. That image shaped the way I think about my own practice. I imagine a film. Then I begin the process of asking, requesting and applying for grants, if available. Sometimes, someone approaches on their own and I suggest a subject that interests me.  When I was a student at the Film Institute, the hope was simple: make a few films first and if people saw value or potential in the work, they might choose to support the next one. In my case, the diploma films I made at the Film Institute paved this path. Soon after, I was offered small projects with little money but a great deal of freedom.  Many of my colleagues from the Film Institute have continued to support me. Even the younger students who once assisted me on those student films have remained close collaborators. Their friendship and affection sustain the work. In a real sense, they are no less than producers because they are the people who help bring these films into existence. I also recall a line, though I no longer remember the poet, that when desire is strong enough the journey itself becomes the destination. For me, the act of making a film, clarifying the idea and improving myself through each work provides its own motivation. This is why I have continued even without financial support. Initially, several of my films were self-initiated and made with little or no money.

Everything changes. Funding structures evolve, expectations shift and institutional priorities move with time. It is difficult to generalise. I try not to constantly analyse or game the system but navigate each project as it comes with sincerity. My experience has been varied. At, times there is genuine respect for artistic integrity; at other times, there are rude shocks and even humiliation. The landscape has perhaps become more strategic, but survival should not eclipse adherence to one’s own principles or lead to the manipulation of the self. Lately, I have realised that opportunities create their own momentum. This is a complex situation because while such continuity can sustain a filmmaker, it can also subtly define the boundaries of one’s work. A filmmaker must therefore negotiate these circumstances carefully and continue exploring new directions while keeping the integrity of the body of work intact.

Artistically and poetically ambitious cinema requires protection from the market. The market demands a return on investment. Governments, in principle, can support work that serves intellectual depth and civilisational reflection rather than entertainment, which forms the nourishing ground for future generations. Such work may not appear valuable in the short term, but it can prove deeply valuable in the long term. Everyday entertainment functions well within market logic. The responsibility of the state should extend to preserving difficult, reflective or experimental cinema that would not survive within a purely commercial system.

Distribution remains a serious challenge. Films may be made but without proper distribution, they remain unseen. However, distribution must preserve dignity. The context in which a film is shown matters, therefore, the value of a work must be placed within an appropriate intellectual and aesthetic framework. Visibility alone is not enough. In fact, I would argue that indiscriminate visibility can be most counter-productive in an attention economy. A film must reach its audience in a space that respects its form and intention; that can create the silence necessary to enable its absorption. Without such placement, circulation becomes dilution. Cinema exists within capital, yet it also resists it. It is also in a way a larger economic model problem when capital’s emphasis on growth needs to shift to sustenance, because growth without nourishing substance is purely malignant.  The question may not be how to eliminate capital, but how to negotiate it without surrendering one’s artistic centre. 

Like many in my generation, I was first inspired by Satyajit Ray, that is, before I joined the Film Institute. After entering it, I studied the early Indian pioneers and was really inspired by them, especially filmmakers like V. Shantaram, Vishnupant Damle, Sheikh Fattelal, Raja Nene, Vishram Bedekar, Baburao Pendharkar and Baburao Painter, and of course Dadasaheb Phalke. While at the institute, I read the autobiographies of V Shantaram called Shantaram and more recently Vishram Bedekar’s One Branch, Two Birds. I found it one of the most compelling autobiographical works by an Indian filmmaker. It seems that they were guided by a strange, insistent inner necessity. Even in their time, art and commerce pulled in different directions, yet a space for experiment remained. Formulas had not yet hardened; having moved from theatre companies into cinema, they seemed to discover the medium as they worked within it. Because of this, maybe a peculiar theatrical element persists in their works; yet alongside it, there is a striking fundamental originality and passion for the new medium. During my years in Pune Film Institute, I also had the opportunity to meet Bapu Watve, the younger brother of Damle’s wife who had worked as an assistant at Prabhat Studio. He had gifted me his books and personal recollections from that era. We all know that many of these filmmakers were associated with the Prabhat Film Company, which later became the Film and Television Institute of India (where I was studying). This continuity gave a sense of working within a lineage, even if my own practice is radically different from it in form and intention. This tradition, in a transformed form, continued through the diploma films of those who came before us at FTII, which I found deeply inspiring. I also encountered the works of Mani Kaul at FTII—himself from an earlier generation at the Institute. I would especially like to mention two of his films: Mati Manas and Dhrupad. 

I do not have direct insight into this, nor have I made any effort to work within that system. So even to a casual observer like myself, it is evident that commercial platforms shape taste through repetition and scale, narrowing perception to familiar forms. They privilege predictability over discovery and train the audience to expect what already works. But more difficult questions remain: what is taken to work? Who determines it? And by what process does that decision acquire authority, especially when alternatives are never even tried?

Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests in his essay Compensation that whatever happens, there will always be a balancing force in life. Therefore, the same conditions that privilege predictability and train audiences to expect what already works also generate a counter-space. Within it, subtle, experimental and exploratory work can still find its value through attentive viewers. I believe the Indian audience is, in general, open and receptive to good and aesthetically challenging cinema, but sadly they have rarely been offered a wide range of choices.