Amol Gupte rues the fact that there are too many illinformed film experts around

He's known for directing Stanley Ka Dabba and writing Taare Zameen Par. However, Amol Gupte has been active on the academic side as well and is looking forward to a public film appreciation course in collaboration with LA India Film Council he'll dispensing over the weekend.

Interestingly, Amol has been executing such cinema study classes for non-privileged children for the past five years now. The filmmaker adds that alertness makes all the difference.

`While crossing a road, if you aren't paying attention, you might get knocked off! Similarly, cinema fail you if you aren't keeping your eyes and ears open. Besides, films have become extremely deep and conscious so the details can't be overlooked, ` says Amol.

According to him, it's important to not mix up Indian cinema with Bollywood and to keep one's perspectives wide and open.

`Cinema as an art form is a baby as it has been around for a little more than hundred years now but the components that make cinema be it architecture, dance, music, theatre, fashion, painting, visual arts and such have been around for thousands of years now.


Watching one Christopher Nolan film doesn't make you a film expert. Or for that, matter, even an Anurag Kashyap film! That'd be like saying Kohlapur Airport is the world's largest airport. ` The Mumbai-based director emphasises on the language of cinema.

`Whether it's Tarkovsky or Kie? lowski or Kurosawa, there is no lack of masters coming from different backgrounds. Content is going to be driven by a region so it is better to watch all sorts of cinema. For him, it remains an art form which is beyond commerce and place.

`The idea is to die as a student of cinema than to be its master, ` sums up the bearded gentleman.