Filmmakers Sudhir Mishra, Nandita Das and Chaitanya Tamhane on Saturday reflected on the long-running tension between art and commerce, Indian cinema’s engagement with world cinema, and the forces that shape what films get made and travel globally, at a session titled ‘Our Films, Their Films’ at the Kolkata Literary Meet.
The discussion, moderated by journalist Priyanka Roy, took its cue from Satyajit Ray’s critical writings on cinema and traced how Indian filmmaking has evolved through multiple phases while remaining deeply influenced by economic, social and institutional conditions.
Mishra said Indian cinema has never developed in isolation and has always been in dialogue with the West, technologically and aesthetically. Early Indian films, he noted, borrowed heavily from German expressionism and European realism, while later popular structures were shaped by commercial compulsions.
“There is no such thing as a fixed ‘Bollywood structure’. The structure came because of economic circumstances and commercial pressures,” Mishra said, arguing that songs, pauses and narrative detours in Hindi cinema were often driven by financing models rather than pure artistic choice.
He maintained that filmmaking is fundamentally shaped by where money comes from. “In Europe, culture is considered a public good and is supported by the state. In India, profit is the only measure. That changes what kind of films can exist,” he said, adding that filmmakers across history have struggled to balance personal vision with audience expectations.
Mishra also cautioned against romanticising filmmakers, saying cinema is built on “hustle” and compromise. “You should only make the films that only you can make,” he said, recalling advice from Japanese master Akira Kurosawa that filmmakers must have many stories to tell or risk being lost in the medium.
Tamhane, whose films Court and The Disciple have won international acclaim, said his career had been shaped primarily by the trust and artistic freedom offered by his producer, Vivek Gomber. “It honestly comes down to who funds the movies,” he said.
Questioning the idea of “world cinema”, Tamhane said global recognition is filtered through gatekeeping and power structures. “Whose gaze is it when we say world cinema? The films that travel are often those that cater to their view of us,” he said.
Tamhane, who did not attend film school, said his exposure to cinema came through television, pirated DVDs and the internet. Discovering films from Iran, Brazil, China and Japan as a teenager, he said, opened up the idea that cinema could exist outside Hollywood and Bollywood frameworks.
Das, on the other hand, said her relationship with cinema was markedly different from that of her co-panellists. Growing up in Delhi in a family rooted in literature and the visual arts, she said films were never central to her upbringing.
“I didn’t grow up watching Hindi cinema and never developed a taste for it. It’s not arrogance, it’s lack of exposure,” Das said. Her early engagement, she revealed, was with street theatre and social work, not filmmaking.
Das said she came to cinema almost by accident, first as an actor across multiple Indian languages and later as a director after the 2002 Gujarat riots compelled her to tell stories through film. “For me, cinema has always been a means to an end,” she said, adding that filmmaking occupies a relatively small space in her life compared to activism and social engagement.