India’s Oscar entry Court and its connection to a Mumbai printer
As Chaitanya Tamhane’s much acclaimed Marathi film Court is selected to be India’s entry for the 2016 Academy Awards (in the Best Foreign Language Film category), we have more than one reason to rejoice. Not only is the film a brilliant indictment of the Indian judicial system, one of the most crucial scenes of the film transpires in a printing press. This happens to be the Sahil Print Arts, located on Khairani Road (Saki Naka) in Mumbai.
03 Oct 2015 | 2894 Views | By Dibyajyoti Sarma
up more than 16 awards, tells the story of a folk singer and cultural activist Narayan Kamble, who is accused of performing an inflammatory song that may have incited a sewage worker to commit suicide in a manhole.
In one of the last scenes of the movie, we see the protagonist visit to a printing press to check on the printing of his book. This scene was shot on the shopfloor of Sahil Print Arts.
Talking to PrintWeek India, Chaitanya Tamhane, the director, explained, "During the scripting process, I was trying to think of a space in which the protagonist of the movie could exist and which would reflect his inner life. He is a cultural activist and a political writer in the film. I remembered a photo feature by PrintWeek India called 'Binders of Khairani: Masters of the lost art', written by Rushikesh Aravkar with photographs by Disha Gandhi. It was Ramu Ramanathan who had pointed me towards this wonderful piece.” (Click here to read the story)
Following this, for Tamhane, the binding facility at Sahil Print Art seemed like a beautiful and evocative location to set the scene in. “The depth, the texture, and the various activities that I saw in that room fascinated me on a visual as well as a thematic level. It became the perfect hideout for Narayan after he has been released from jail, and where he would print his subversive and provocative book, A History of Humiliation,” he added.
Khairani Road, located in Saki Naka, comprises of 12 book binding firms.
Another print trivia: The copy of the books which are shown printed in Court was produced by Parksons Graphics.