The 96-minute Marathi film includes simple, heartwarming anecdotes such as Nirmala Patwardhan losing a precious Gandhiji’s hanky, which she considered a precious gift, while moving to India post-Partition. It also tells us about many personal events from the family’s life including the passing away of Patwardhan’s parents. “We are more or less a rational family. Death is part of life. Rituals are done to comfort the living, they mean nothing to the dead. Filming my parents was my way of saying goodbye,” says Patwardhan.

In an interview at the 48th Toronto International Film Festival, Patwardhan said that while he believes that there is a renaissance in Indian filmmaking, both fiction and documentary, OTT won’t touch his films. When we asked him how he manages to speak his mind in times of censorship, he said, “Cinema, and indeed all art and expression is defined by the limits placed. The limits are both political and commercial. We will always find ways to speak but the State and the Market decide how much to allow these voices to spread. Today, despite censorship and market disapproval, a film I made in 1992 is still being screened across India even as the country allows manufactured news and religious fervour to dominate our screens and newspaper headlines, and thus cannibalise our brains.”
 
On: Thursday, January 18, 6.30 pm onwards
At: Little Theatre, NCPA, Nariman Point
Entry: First-come-first-served basis (The film screenings will be followed by a post-film discussion)