The colloquium was visionary in the breadth and depth of the subjects discussed, from the ethics of film preservation to the “expanded archive” of Indian short films, discussed by senior curators and experts, including Dr Paolo Cherchi Usai (George Eastman Museum, New York), film historian Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Ravi Vasudevan (Sarai), Markus Ruff (Arsenal-Institute for Film and Video Art, Berlin), Madhusree Dutta (Majlis, Academy of the Arts of the World, Cologne), Shivendra Singh Dungarpur (Film Heritage Foundation), Chalida Uabumrungjit (Film Archive, Thailand) and Karen Chan (Asian Film Archive, Singapore). The expert speakers included Moinak Biswas, Shai Heredia and Nida Ghose, among others. There were film screenings, exhibitions, theatre and music performances, including a screening of the restored 1921 silent film Behula, directed by Camille Legrand and starring Patience Cooper, with live music by Borno Anonyo and ensemble. 

For my curation workshop on Indian Cinema: Contemporary Challenges in Film Curation and Programming, I discussed my curating career in bullet points in 45 mins, including clips from Satyajit Ray’s Devi (Bengali), Rajiv Menon’s Kandukondain Kandukondain (Tamil), and V Shantaram’s Pinjra (Marathi), to illustrate my diverse curating work for the Toronto International Film Festival’s TIFF Cinematheque, British Film Institute, and Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, Frankfurt. I discussed how I got work opportunities, what skills and tasks curation requires, how I persuaded institutions to look beyond Bollywood and Satyajit Ray, and found cinematic links to local audiences. I had also curated The Die Is Caste for the Kochi Muziris Biennale in 2017, with films and music on caste issues, including performances by Bant Singh (protest singer, Punjab), Manimaran and family (Parai, Chennai) and Karinthalakoottam (indigenous ensemble, Trichur). The wonderful curator Bina Paul, who spoke right after my session, described me as the Toofan Express, ha ha! 

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The colloquium was possible because of support from Himansu Sekhar Khatua, then SRFTI Director, Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, and Neerja Sekhar, Additional Secretary, both from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and multiple teams. And the SRFTI campus, with its many beautiful flowering trees, lawns, and lakes, was a glorious place to be.

Meenakshi Shedde is India and South Asia Delegate to the Berlin International Film Festival, National Award-winning critic, curator to festivals worldwide and journalist. 
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com