Film director Shyam Benegal, who was honoured at a function in the British Film Institute on Saturday evening, said he would start actively working on films now that his term as a Rajya Sabha member has ended.
“I sometimes wonder what happens when people come to my age — they keep getting all kinds of awards, saying, ‘Goodbye now, enough of you. We have seen you for a long time and it’s time you are put to pasture.’ I have decided not to be put to pasture and I will continue to make films,” the Hyderabad-born film director said after receiving the excellence in cinema award from the South Asian Cinema Foundation, which, he said, he was “absolutely delighted” to receive. “Getting an award is like an intimation of mortality for a filmmaker,” he said, adding that the awards spurred him to do more as a filmmaker.
Benegal, regarded as one of the founders of the New Wave cinema in India in the 1970s, made his film debut with Ankur (Seedling, 1973), followed by Nishant (Night’s End, 1975), Manthan (The Chur-ning, 1976) and Bhumika (The Role, 1977). In an interesting revelation, Benegal said that he had initially thought of filming his first film, Ankur, in Telugu, but changed his mind as he wanted to show his film at an pan-Indian level. The BFI honoured 77-year-old Benegal by screening of two of his best films this weekend — Bhumika, and Junoon (Obsession, 1978). Benegal also gave a masterclass on the making of Bhumika at the BFI on Sunday.
Benegal will give the Phalke Memorial Lecture on New Indian Cinema Circa 2012 at the Nehru Centre, the cultural wing of the Indian high commission in London on Monday. He will also open SACF’s Shyam Benegal Exhibition, curated by Dr Kusum Pant Joshi, the same day.