The making of cinema occurs with ordinary objects, and the filmmakers are the ones who make the culture happen,” says Karan Talwar, founder, Harkat Studios, while revealing about This Object From That, a crowd-sourced exhibition that aims to immortalise ordinary objects from film sets. Cinema has always been a site of preservation — of people, of history and of memory. The exhibition is part of the Alti Palti Film Festival, a month-long festival dedicated to bringing independent art and artists to the forefront with the intent to preserve the cinema-set, where the memory-making happens.
Karan Talwar and Michaela Talwar
He reveals a few examples, “That shawl you wore on set every day; that pair of comfortable slippers you wore on a shoot; a pair of jeans with five pockets that someone couldn’t do without on set.” Michaela Talwar, co-founder of Alt Shows, a platform to discover alternative shows, adds, “For everyone who is not from the film industry, this project is the most intimate, behind-the-scenes glimpse that they can get.”
The beauty lies in its simple goal, “We view only cinema in its glamour. Cinema-themed museums typically showcase precious objects like the first projector and the first camera; objects that look glitzy. We want to turn our attention away from fancy objects and bring the attention back to the everydayness of cinema makers.” Karan elaborates.
Michaela reveals that this is a small part of a larger effort, “We have been curating the Museum of Ordinary Objects since 2017. Each one had a slightly different angle, always rooted within a larger narrative or geography.” Elaborating on choosing Versova as the venue, she adds, “Versova is the heartbeat of the film industry, and we believe art should make you feel seen and heard; it counts for films as much as physical art. We crowd-source objects to include stories from the neighbourhood.” Karan summarises, “A Gujarati film producer is sending a whole box of objects from Gujarat. The idea is to reach out to the general public who work in film.”
ON April 25 and 26, 11 am onwards
AT A La Carte, Aram Nagar 2, Versova.
LOG ON TO @altipalti_festival
