Guwahati, April 15: The death of eminent film critic and documentary filmmaker Altaf Mazid dampened the Assamese New Year celebrations.
Mazid, 59, died in Bangalore on Wednesday after suffering a heart attack. He is survived by his wife and daughter. He was working as an executive engineer in the public health engineering department of Assam.
Mazid took the initiative to screen the digitised version of Joymoti, the first Assamese film made by Jyoti Prasad Agarwala in 1935, at different film festivals.
He made a number of documentaries and films, including Byoktigata Aru Goponio (1992), Jibon (1998), Lakhtokiat Golam (2001), Our Common Future (2002), The Joy of Giving (2004), Las Vegasat (2004), Bhal Khabar (2005), Crazy on the Rocks (2007), Kunir Kutil Dosha (2008), Boliya Pitair Sohoki Sotal (2008), Chitra Sutram (2010) and Rahashyar Bitchaku.
Eminent film critic Utpal Datta said Mazid had a different approach to being both a critic and a filmmaker. "His critical observation of movies helped him make films. Similarly, his knowledge of technical aspects of filmmaking helped him reviewing a film," he said.
"He started his literary life with short story. He had deep love for fiction. That is why a fiction type narration gets prominence in his documentaries and short films. That was unique. He knew well how to establish a fact by the language of cinema," Datta said.
"Mazid was close to and a follower of eminent Assamese short story writer Saurav Kumar Chaliha, made films on his stories, took the initiative in making available Chaliha's short stories online. To encourage new filmmakers to make short films on Chaliha's stories, he planned to constitute an award from the money he had received from various awards," he added.
In 2008, Mazid was awarded the Rajat Kamal (national award) for his documentary Boliya Pitair Sohoki Sotal and also won the Swarna Kamal as best film critic. In 2014, he was conferred the Sonali Sankha award for his 40-minute documentary Rohoshyor Bitsoku.
Mazid served on the jury of several film festivals, including the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in 1992, International Documentary Film Festival (IDFA), Amsterdam, in 1997, Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (YIDFF), Japan, in 2001, Bengaluru International Film Festival in 2014, International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala in 2015. He was a FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) jury member at the Moscow International Film Festival in 2004 and Cannes Film Festival in 2012. He was also a member of the selection committee of the Indian panorama (non-fiction) category of IFFI (1999).
