bit of a throwback to those`director intros' we used to do during the old mubi cups. not that this is one in any meaningful sense of the term, more an excuse to post a link to a wonderful tumblr resource called sarkari shorts maintained by alexander keefe (here: https://filmsdivisionindia.tumblr.com), with links to and brief write-ups on many of the films division of india short documentary films (including, but not restricted to some made by sastry). i alluded to this in the intro thread, would've ideally loved more to present a cross-section of some of the formally and politically interesting films/makers here (s. sukhdev and pramod pati two that come to mind), but there's few more interesting, fiercely experimental and idiosyncratic (and funny) than s.n.s. sastry, so this works too. [it does mean though that if you find the style jarring, or just flat out hate the first one, you may not want to sit through similarly frenzied montage and stylizations three more times, though they *are* all very short!]
may or may not use either in future rounds, but the blurbs on `on the move' (here: https://filmsdivisionindia.tumblr.com/p ... astry-year) and particularly `our indira' (strange profile piece on the then-indian pm, here: https://filmsdivisionindia.tumblr.com/p ... -year-1973 are illuminating. will add to this thread if i find any more writing on him. for now, here's some hands from `this bit of that india'.
s.n.s. sastry: man with a (state-sponsored) movie camera
glad to see a director intro! these were always my favorite parts of the cup. and sarkari shorts page is the best.