Madhusree Dutta facts for kids
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Madhusree Dutta is an Indian filmmaker, writer, and a person who organizes art shows (a curator).
Life and Education
Madhusree Dutta was born in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, an industrial town in India. She studied Economics at Jadavpur University in Kolkata and Dramatics (theatre studies) at the National School of Drama in New Delhi. In 1987, Dutta moved to Mumbai (which was called Bombay back then).
She has been a judge (jury member) at many important film festivals. These include the Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival) in 2015 and the International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala in 2009. Her films have also been specially shown at festivals like the Mumbai International Documentary Festival in 2018.
Today, she lives in Cologne, Germany. Since 2018, she has been the Artistic Director of the Akademie der Künste der Welt in Cologne. Madhusree Dutta has also been chosen to receive a special Lifetime Achievement Award for her work in documentaries at the 12th International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala.
Her Work
Madhusree Dutta started bringing art, activism (working for change), and teaching together very early on. In 1990, she organized EXPRESSION, which was the first feminist arts festival in India. This festival brought together women scholars, artists, and activists. It is seen as a very important moment in the history of feminism in India.
Her work often explores ideas about gender (how society sees boys and girls, men and women), how cities grow, public art, and making documentaries. She often mixes different art styles and uses both serious art and popular art in her projects. Her work shows she is both a political activist and an experimental artist. She has worked with many artists, including filmmaker Philip Scheffner and photo artist Ines Schaber.
She has also created digital projects to save art and information online. One project, called Godaam, is available for free on a website called PADMA (Public Access Digital Media Archive).
Madhusree Dutta helped start Majlis in 1990. This is an organization in Mumbai that works for cultural activism and women's rights. She was the executive director of Majlis until 2016. She also helped found the Akademie Der Künste Der Welt in Cologne. She has been an active member of the women's movement in India and the World Social Forum. She has helped these movements by creating and sharing art.
On October 5, 2015, she joined a protest by writers and filmmakers across India. They were protesting against the government's cultural policies. As part of this protest, she returned her National Awards.
Theatre Work
Dutta started her career in theatre with a Bengali theatre group called Anarjya in Kolkata. She also belonged to a feminist group called Sachetana. For both groups, she directed plays for stages and street theatre. Two of her most famous plays from this time were a Bengali version of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children and an anti-dowry musical called Meye Dile Sajiye (Giving Away the Girl).
When she moved to Mumbai, she continued to be active in theatre for a few years. She directed a popular street play for the women's movement called Nari Itihas ki Talash mein (In Search of Women's History) in 1988. She also directed Aaj Pyar Bandh (Love is on Strike) in 1991, which was based on an ancient Greek play.
Films
Her first film was I Live in Behrampada (1993). This documentary was about a Muslim neighborhood during the Mumbai riots of 1992-93. It won a Filmfare Award for best documentary in 1994. The film became an important resource for studying conflicts.
After that, she made many more films, including documentaries, short films, and non-fiction features. Most of her films are made with the same team: cameraman Avijit Mukul Kishore and editor Shyamal Karmakar. Her 2006 film Seven Islands and A Metro, about the city of Mumbai, was one of the first documentaries to be shown in movie theaters in India. Besides making her own films, she has also produced documentaries for younger filmmakers. She has helped many documentary filmmakers in Mumbai. Her films have won three National Film Awards.
Curating Art Shows
From 2009 to 2013, Madhusree Dutta curated a big project called "Project Cinema City: Research Art and Documentary Practices." This project explored the many ways the city of Mumbai and the films made there are connected. The project showed that filmmaking is a lot of hard work, involving many people. It also looked at how filmmaking connects to people moving to cities for work, changes in city populations, and new technologies.
This project was first shown at the Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival) in 2010. Later, it was shown in galleries like the National Gallery of Modern Art in Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore between 2011 and 2014. It was also shown in smaller galleries and public places.
Awards
- 1996, 2001 National Film Award, India
- Second Best Film Award, International Video Fest, 1995
- Best Public Service Advertisement Award, 1998
- Best Script award in Shanghai International Film Festival, 2001
- IDPA Awards for best Kannada film and best Bengali film, 2001
- HIVOS Culture Award for Asia region, 2005
- Special Jury Award in Film Southasia, 2007
- John Abraham Best Documentary award (as producer), 2012
- Kölner Kulturpreis "Cultural Manager of the year 2018", Kölner Kulturpreis, 2019 www.koelnerkulturrat.de
- "Lifetime Achievement Award", International Documentary and Short Film Festival of Kerala (IDSFFK) Award for filmmaker Madhusree Dutta
- And several awards from citizens.
