mdblist.com logo The Best Amit Dutta Directed Movies


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poster
71
21
7.4
/313/
65
/14/
66
/10/
4.0
/1275/

Nainsukh (2011)
The 18th-century Indian painter Nainsukh of Guler receives a poetic, visually stunning tribute from a young Indian filmmaker employing an arresting pictorial language. Shot in the region where Nainsukh produced his most celebrated work, this is a meditative and meticulous recreation of the world of an artistic genius.
poster
70
13
6.8
/118/
70
/7/
70
/3/
3.6
/1006/

Wittgenstein Plays Chess with Marcel Duchamp, or How Not to Do Philosophy (2020)
The project attempts to push the boundaries of cinema by juxtaposing it with ideas from philosophy, visual art, chess, mathematics, geometry, linguistics and psychology
poster
66
9
6.8
/124/
60
/5/
65
/10/
3.6
/355/

To Be Continued (2007)
An ascetic walks through the narrow streets of a village every morning while his family is still asleep. In his semi-somnolent state he dreams about the history of the village mixing up myths, folklore and facts.
poster
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7.0
/16/

Rhythm of a Flower (2024)
Kumar Gandharav, a child prodigy who subsequently became one of the finest and most original geniuses of Indian classical music, was struck by tuberculosis at the height of his abilities. For years, he lay in bed, barred from using his lungs, unsure if he would ever be able to rise or sing again. Meanwhile, his senses were gathering sounds from nature, from distant folk melodies, and from every vibration of life. Sometimes he practiced, singing so softly that it was hardly audible beyond his bed. This film takes this single moment of him lying on his sick bed and expands it, where his life of music and contemplation moves like a dream. When he rises after six years in bed, with only one lung spared, he writes, sings, and teaches again, giving voice to the six long years of silence and bridging the old and new with visionary insights.
poster
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7.1
/32/

The Unknown Craftsman (2017)
Towards the end of the eighth century, an architect journeys across the lower Himalayas in search of the perfect site for constructing a temple, not merely as a place of worship but as a monumental record crystallizing the collective accomplishment of a civilization.
poster
?
6.4
/10/
100
/1/

Even Red Can Be Sad (2015)
This film explores various aspects of litterateur and painter Ram Kumar's personality by structuring the film around his stories and paintings, traveling between fragments of his past, present, fiction and imagery. It strives of etch out the synthesis of word and image in Ram Kumar's creations, presenting it as a portrait of the artist himself. The text used in the film is from various short stories by Ram Kumar.
poster
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6.7
/14/
60
/2/

Gita Govinda (2013)
The 18th century Pahari miniatures illustrating the verses of 'Gita Govinda' by the poet Jayadeva, are also loving and intimate portraits of the verdant landscape of the Kangra Valley. Nature becomes a primary actor and the director focuses on the alchemy of the 'transformation of nature in art.'
poster
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4.3
/9/
60
/1/

A Visit (2017)
The Ashokan rock-edict in a remote Himalayan village has the last fragment of a script only decipherable by few experts. Some miles away in Shimla, the art-historian V.C.Ohri, who uncovered the origins and techniques of Pahari paintings, warmly welcomes visitors. He is meeting them for the very first and last time.
poster
?
4.7
/14/
40
/1/

An Invitation (2017)
Two philosophers discuss their ideas. The next day one of them is getting married and invites the others.
poster
?
5.5
/10/
50
/2/

Two Expeditions (2017)
The film juxtaposes two journeys, one in search of the name of a Pahari painter lost in genealogical registers, and the other in search of a lake once called the eighth wonder of the world.
poster
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5.6
/15/
60
/2/
40
/2/

Tape 39 (2020)
Jangarh Singh Shyam, a famous Indian artist born in an isolated tribal village, committed suicide in a Japanese museum in 2001. I found on an old MiniDV tape the images of a trip I had undertaken in 2008, when I had gone looking for him in his native region.
poster
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7.7
/10/

Notes on Guler (2019)
Guler, a small principality near Kangra, was an artistic and cultural wellspring since it's accidental inception in the 15th century. Many greats like painters Pandit Seu, his sons Manaku, Nainsukh, and the poet Brajraj were born here. Today the whole system of patronage under which lofty endeavours were possible even in financially austere conditions is gone. And tragically even the physical landscape is submerged under a dam. The film seeks out some traces of the submerged past, through the memories of those left behind, a condensation of a bygone civilization.
poster
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6.0
/37/
50
/2/
60
/1/

Ramkhind (2003)
A rare and intimate glimpse into the everyday life of the famously reclusive and creative Warli tribe. Ramkhind is a village in Thane district, a little over 100km from Mumbai. Yet in the year 2000, this village had managed to stay centuries away from the mainstream, preserving it's ancient way of life and rich ecosystem. Gods, ghosts and tigers still inhabited their world.
poster
55
?
5.7
/47/
40
/1/
3.4
/299/

Drawn from Dreams (2019)
An eighteenth-century notebook from the Western Himalayan Hills has recorded in it dreams as omens. Scenes from the waking memory of the artist seem to have enlivened dreams from a bygone era. Coming from the family ateliers of the master painter Nainsukh of Guler, this journal of dreams is interesting not only for its ethnographical documentation but also for the excellent artistic qualities of the illustrations, underlined delightfully with sound and rhythm by the director Amit Dutta.
poster
?
5.7
/10/
60
/1/

Scenes from a Sketchbook (2016)
The film is based on and inspired from the tinted brush drawings, sketches and some finished yet minimalistic works of the 18th century master miniature painter Nainsukh. Even in some of his finished paintings, the artist did not hide his corrections and afore-thoughts, which he allowed to show through a mostly untouched stark page. This film attempts the same.
poster
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60
/1/
65
/1/

Jangarh Film One (2008)
The village artist Jangarh Singh Shyam left home and became a well-known contemporary painter. He committed suicide in 2001. Through his art, places and stories, the filmmaker explores the traces he left on his path.
poster
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50
/1/
88
/2/

Who? (2005)
Suggestions of ancient and modern myths and folklore coalesce in dreams to bring alive a colourful animated world.
poster
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5.7
/11/
40
/1/

Blue Elephant (2016)
A thespian rehearses a Sanskrit play from 2nd century CE. The footage is robbed of sound. The inter-titles try to tell the story.
poster
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4.7
/16/
30
/2/

The Day a Tree Fell (2019)
A tribute to Jonas Mekas. A tree is cut down, a caterpillar climbs its own thread, and drops of moisture tremble on broad leaves.
poster
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5.2
/17/
40
/1/

Ishu's Balloon and a Painting that Comes to Life (2017)
A boy plays with his balloon. Something unexpected happens.
poster
?
5.9
/21/
50
/1/

Field-Trip (2013)
Professor B.N. Goswamy travels back along the path of some forty years’ research on the 18th century Indian master-painter Nainsukh. Field-Trip follows the scholar in the lower western Himalayas as he tracks down contemporary vestiges of Nainsukh’s lineage.
poster
71
?
6.2
/92/
77
/4/
80
/1/
3.4
/330/

The Museum of Imagination (2012)
Amit Dutta recorded several conversations with Prof. B.N. Goswamy, an important art historian of India, covering his entire body of work. Interspersed with his talks were also some silences. This film draws upon some of those moments of silence and weaves them into a web of ideas and images that fill the art-historian’s mindscape.
poster
65
?
6.6
/51/
60
/2/
3.5
/206/

Chitrashala: House of Paintings (2015)
When a gallery of paintings becomes emptied of its spectators, the curtains raise within the paintings.
poster
69
?
7.1
/106/
65
/4/
68
/2/
3.6
/405/

The Seventh Walk (2013)
Led by mysterious sounds and footprints, a painter wanders within a surreal space of the forest, his own paintings and oneiric spaces.
poster
59
?
6.6
/107/
50
/2/
50
/1/
3.5
/305/

The Golden Bird (2011)
Two travelers are in search of a flying-craft, which they believe could possibly take them to the ultimate escape from the cycle of births. On their way they record their memories, dreams and fears on a sound-recorder and in a notebook.
poster
?
7.7
/85/
77
/6/

The Man's Woman and Other Stories (2009)
A series of three episodes which explore the relationship between men, women and the physical and mental spaces they inhabit.
poster
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Masaan (2004)
A grandmother tells the story of partition (almost like a mythic tale) while her young granddaughter witnesses contemporary political reality. Someday this young girl will go on to tell these tales.
poster
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Stream-Story (2025)
In Himachal Pradesh’s Kangra Valley, an ancient network of kuhls – hand-built water channels – carries water. The kohlis, “water masters,” struggle to protect this heritage, custodians of a way of life where water flows alongside folk tales, myths, and local arts.
poster
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The Lesson (2024)
This short-film was made by Amit Dutta to encapsulate some essential teachings of Kashmir Shaivism as taught by Bettina Sharada Baeumer. The film was shot at Indian Institute of Advanced Study (Shimla) in 2016.
poster
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Finished/Unfinished (2015)
The 8th-century craftsmen left Shiva’s rock-cut temple in Masrur unfinished. An earthquake left it half unmade. From the forest to the heart of the temple, the film follows the ancient plans, step by step. The rock breathes. What remains becomes a sign of the non-apparent.
poster
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A Thousand Colours of Jamini Roy (2023)
A film on the art of the revered Indian painter Jamini Roy (1887-1972). Could we reach out to nature through his seemingly flat colours and establish the diversity in this uniformity? A Thousand Colours of Jamini Roy explores the intricate world of modern artist Jamini Roy’s natural pigments and colours that are each rendered unique unlike the shades of the digital world today.
poster
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Haren Das: 21 Studies of Life in Sound and Silence – Movement and Stillness (2023)
In Haren Das: 21 Studies of Life, Amit Dutta portrays the remarkable ability to infuse static images with vivid life, giving an immersive experience to Das’s printmaking, wood engravings, etching, and linocut, used to capture landscapes, seascapes, and flora and fauna indigenous to the Bengal region.
poster
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In the Beautiful Mind-Forest of Sita Devi
The world of Sita Devi, the artist, steeped in her own world of devotion and mythos—an unaffected presentation of her inner experience.
poster
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The Many Interrupted Dreams of Mr. Hemmady (2024)
The Many Interrupted Dreams of Mr. Hemmady explores the unintentional and fantastical narratives contained within matchbox art, delving into the interplay of dreams, desires, and histories, presenting them as a chaotic yet meaningful mosaic of knowledge and wisdom, all while embracing the paradoxical nature of collecting and creation.
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Gentleman's Magazine
Flipping through the pages of The Gentleman’s Magazine’s 1794 edition, the pastoral landscapes and curious reclics of a pre-industrialized England unfold in fine woodcuts.
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Touch Air (2023)
An homage to the influential practice and philosophy of artist Nasreen Mohamedi. The film incorporates Mohamedi’s personal notes and her unique singular vision, drawing upon the aesthetics of the bare line, and its metaphysical journey eliminating physical borders/barriers.
poster
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Kshya Tra Ghya (2004)
A stream of mysterious rituals and symbols are encountered as a young boy journeys to school in the fantastical world of Kshya Tra Ghya.
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Bat like Devil Chaser with a Top Hat (2022)
Culled from over 5,000 photographs by Jyoti Bhatt (b. 1934) from the collection of Bengaluru’s Museum of Art and Photography, this short film pays respect to an artist whose body of work is a portrait of the Indian nation and offers a poetic visual and sonic journey across land and time.
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Blueprint of a Pleasure Machine (2023)
N/A
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Mother, Who Will Weave Now? (2022)
Mother, Who Will Weave Now? attempts to sample and mirror the grand tapestry of Indian textile tradition and history by interweaving snippets of Indian cloth on an editing table, using the poetic meters of classical Indian literature sewn together with the words and motifs of the weaver-saint Kabir.
poster
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I do it for the Sparrow and the Mouse (2020)
The Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh has a living tradition of the age-old water distribution system regionally called 'kuhls'. The custodians of the kuhls, or water-channels are the 'kohlis'. This film follows contemporary kohlis and their struggles in keeping the system alive.
poster
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Ten Questions from a Critic (2017)
The critic Max Nelson asks Amit Dutta a series of ten questions. He replies in the form of a video essay.
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The Scent of Earth (2021)
A nostalgic tale about childhood bazaars, scents and smells.
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If I go, where do I go? (2021)
Dutta’s new feature finds Hindi experimental writer Krishna Baldev Vaid (1927–2020)—who was born in what is now Pakistan and migrated to India during Partition—living with his daughter in a small apartment in New York. “At ninety-one, after a lifetime of his love affair with language, he feels at a loss for words. His mercurial intelligence scales his life’s journey, mostly in silence. He reads out his own work, anxious to access the ‘dance of language,’ for expressing which he had paid dearly. He takes brief walks into the city, the sounds are not those of his literature. He has visitors, enacting an avant-garde play. He watches, silent, his mind in a place deeper inside him, even as his senses are alert, looking outwards”
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The Game of Shifting Mirrors (2020)
How do the vicissitudes of contemporary notions of nationhood alter our relationship with cultural patrimony? It’s a question obliquely suggested by Amit Dutta’s latest film. As a camera explores the architecture of a museum, we hear a description of a painting we never see. Eventually, we leave the building behind and examine the remains of a temple, explored to weather and war. Sensual and rigourous, The Game of Shifting Mirrors reaffirms Dutta’s place as India’s most accomplished experimental filmmaker -- Michael Sicinski


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