Indian film movement is much more vibrant now: Shyam Benegal

Indian film movement today is much more vibrant than ever feels veteran Shyam Benegal.

Mumbai: Indian film movement today is much more vibrant than ever with young directors playing a significant role in infusing a modern sensibility into cinema, feels veteran Shyam Benegal.

"My criticism of popular Indian Cinema before I became a filmmaker was that it neither created a credible reality nor did it reflect any of the complexity of Indian culture or society. However, I have revised my views considerably since then," Benegal said while delivering the 10th Dada Saheb Palke Memorial Lecture here last night. The 77-year-old filmmaker, a pioneer in the new cinema movement of the 70s and early 80s, is known for directing path-breaking films like "Ankur", "Nishant", "Manthan" and "Bhumika". The Dada Saheb Palke Award winner said, "Over the years, the graduates of the Film & Television Institutes both in Pune and Kolkata have played a significant role in infusing a modern sensibility into the Indian Cinema - more in the regional language than in the mainstream Hindi Cinema. "Yet another aspect of past modern Hindi Cinema is the gradual disappearance of rural India in most of the films being made today." Benegal said directors like Anurag Kashyap, Vishal Bhardwaj, Debakar Benerjee, Sujoy Ghosh, Soojit Sarkar and scores of others in Hindi Cinema and some in Bengali, Tamil, Telegu and Malayam are making films with a sense of reality. The director said he likes films like `Delhi Belly`, `Gangs of Wasseypur` and `Shanghai` as they are dealing with a sense of reality. PTI