Artistes dwell upon Punjabi cinema, cultural challenges faced by society

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 2

On the second day of the 8th Amritsar Sahitya Utsav being organised by research institute Naad Pragas, at Khalsa College for Women, a special discussion on Punjabi cinema and cultural challenges faced by Punjabi society remained in focus.

Eminent Punjabi filmmakers and critics, in the session on ‘Punjabi Cinema: Contemporary Scene and Direction’, analysed the current status of Punjabi cinematic content and quality. Immanuel Singh, an educator and actor-filmmaker, while focusing on the practicality of Punjabi cinema said Punjabi cinema has been more interested in commercial trends rather than its original vision of creating original content. “Bollywood has also limited Punjab to a specific mould, the diversity of the Punjabi society is not being presented through Punjabi cinema, but only the dominant social classes associated with agriculture are presented,” he said. Sharing another perspective on the matter, Daljit Amin, a filmmaker and academician from Punjabi University, Patiala, said the anthropology of Punjab has become the bearer of feudal values, due to which the hero of Punjabi cinema is also appears in a feudal character. “Punjabi cinema has failed to create diversity within itself,” he backed up his observation.

Former professor of Punjabi University, Patiala, Dr Satish Kumar Verma also particpated in the discussion.

The other sessions during the day were student dialogue on ‘Theory: Study and Teaching’, in which Varun Wigmal from Jawaharlal Nehru University Delhi, Lakhveer Singh from Jamia Millia Islamia, Heera Singh and Japreet Kaur from Punjabi University participated. Earlier, Dr Dipinderjit Kaur Randhawa, a scholar and thinker, adressed a session on theory of criticism from the perspective of study that literature has always been transformative but at present the relationship between the reader and the text has broken. While presenting the paper during this event, researchers Harkamalpreet Singh and Kulwinder singh, discussed new trends emerging in Punjabi poetry and English literature. Meanwhile, two books titled, ‘Alternative Narratives’ and ‘Carnival of Difference’ were released.

Naad Pargas members, Sarabjit Singh encouraged researchers to understand the importance of theorising during academic research.

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