Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Filmmaker Prashant Bhargava died of a cardiac arrest on May 15 in New York. The 42-year-old, who had a history of heart trouble, is survived by his parents Vijay and Ranjana Bhargava and his sister Arunima Bhargava.
Considered to be a deeply humane filmmaker and artist, Bhargava was most well-known for the 2012 film “Patang,” his feature-length directorial debut, which brought together stories of six people during India’s largest kite festival.
The film received rave reviews, garnering a rare 4 stars from Roger Ebert who selected chose the film as 1 of 12 films in his annual film festival, EbertFest. The New York Times selected the film as a Critics Pick, celebrating its “lovely, unforced quality”. Variety‘s Jay Weissberg called “Patang” a Tennessee Williams-style story.
“Patang” premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and in the main competition at the Tribeca Film Festival. The film won many awards including Best Feature Narrative at the Hawaii Film Festival, Best World Narrative at the Indy Film Festival, a Special Jury Award at the Osians Film Festival in New Delhi, Best Feature Narrative at the DC APA Film Festival and received Best Director and Best Film at the SAIFF’s Rising Star Film Awards. Defying convention in its process and cinematic language, “Patang” united a community torn apart by religious conflict and natural disaster, starring two of India’s finest actors Seema Biswas and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, The New York Times said in its obituary for Bhargava.
He spent three years researching “Patang” and seven years making it, using mostly nonprofessional actors who improvised loosely from a script. He spent many months in Ahmedabad observing people for the film set during that Gujarat city’s annual kite festival.
In a 2011 interview with Roger Ebert’s Journal, Bhargava explained that in India, kite flying transcends boundaries. “Rich or poor, Hindu or Muslim, young or old — together they look towards the sky with wonder, thoughts and doubts forgotten,” he said. “Kite flying is meditation in its simplest form.”
In a 2012 interview with Variety, Bhargava said he was very conscious of coming in from the outside, while shooting the film in India. “I would sit in a kite shop for hours, and I got to know the community very well,” he said.
Bhargava, was born in Chicago and lived in New York. His father, Vijay, was a management consultant and actor who studied in the critic Roger Ebert’s film class at the University of Chicago. His mother, Ranjana, managed nonprofit social service organizations dedicated to groups including immigrants and victims of domestic violence. Bhargava graduated from Cornell University in 1994 after studying computer science there. He also studied theatrical directing in New York, at the Barrow Group Theater Company and School and at the Actors Studio. He later designed and directed video advertising for NBC and PBS.
His film short “Sangam,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, was praised by Greg Tate of The Village Voice as “an elegant and poetic evocation of immigrant angst, memory and haunted spirituality.”
He had recently collaborated with Vijay Iyer, a Grammy-nominated jazz pianist and winner of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation fellowship, on the film “Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi,” based on Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.”
He had earlier demonstrated mastery of color and form as a graffiti artist before progressing into commercial campaigns for television series like “The Wire” and “Def Poetry Jam”; films like “Born Into Brothels,” “Lumumba” and “Path to War”; and music videos for artists like Cornershop, Talib Kweli and Missy Elliott.
The post ‘Patang’ Director Prashant Bhargava Dies Of Cardiac Arrest At 42 appeared first on News India Times.