Passionate about photography: Aziz Mahdi, a Persian scholar, who teaches youngsters in Delhi
Aziz Mahdi, a Persian scholar, on how he balances his love for images and the language of his forefathers
To get us, in Delhi, at least a little bit curious about understanding Iran, Aziz Mahdi, a Delhi-ite who lived for a decade in Tehran, where he studied Persian and then taught the language, is showcasing a pictorial exhibition. On display are 40 photographs (selected arduously out of 50,000 images) in different sizes, of this West Asian nation that gives us a glimpse into its culture and history. Aziz, or Dr. Mahdi, as he is fondly called by his Iranian and Indian students in Tehran and Delhi, has used handmade German paper to print on, ensuring the pictures last a lifetime.
Little is known in India about Iran, barring its “political and bureaucratic side”. On the other hand, there’s a fair amount Iranians know about our country. “Some people think Iran is a desert country. Even my father’s friend asked me if I got adequate drinking water in Tehran. I had to explain to him that there are reservoirs all across the country.”
Travel tales
Between 2005 to 2016, when Aziz lived there, doing a Ph.D. at Tehran University, he would get asked questions relating to Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Salman Khan. He’s watched Sholay in Persian, while travelling on a bus there. “Most Iranians know that India is a nation of diversity and democracy. They describe India as Haftado do Mellat . In English, it would mean a nation of 72 ethnicities.”
Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque
As a history student at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi, Aziz had come across a classical dome of Persian architecture umpteen times in his textbooks. But the moment of seeing the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque was something else. A perfect example of preserving heritage, it was built during the Safavid Empire, in the early 17th century, and has now been designated by UNESCO as a world heritage site.
“It was almost a surreal experience. Architecturally speaking, Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque has a perfect dome. Domes are usually uneven structures. It also has glazed tiles. It was a palace of princess; royal women would go through the tunnel and come back.”
Everyday life and some of the exotic
The exhibition has different aspects of daily life, along with architecture. There’s the Zoroastrian side of Iran with the Chakchak Fire temple; a ring seller leaning on his bike, the confidence in the way he wears his hat; the scissor-maker, an elderly man, with eyes sans pessimism, despite his years. Tehran as a cosmopolitan city comes through in a picture of a wedding where the bride and groom wear Western attire.
Early on, one of his friends gave him “sane advise” that if he wanted to be an Iranologist, he needed to know the country inside out. One way was to study it; the other, was through travel. “I explored this scenic country. However, I still like describing myself as a part Iranologist,” says the 36-year-old, who stands at six feet, four inches.
Persian heritage
Iranian Wedding
Aziz’s father, Akhtar Mahdi, retired as professor of Persian language and literature from JNU. “While growing up, I was guided by him and learnt how Persian is important from the historical perspective. From the 11th century onwards, all our official documents, land deeds of the State and historical texts were printed in Persian. So for 800 years, Persian was the official language until the Mughal rule ended and the British abolished it.”
In fact, Urdu is the daughter of Persian. “It was used during Nadir Shah’s military campaign. It was basically a camp language which was spoken by Persian and Turk soldiers.”
Musician playing a flute
He has roots in Persia too, with his forefathers migrating during the Mughal reign. As for photography, he’s dabbled since childhood, but he began taking it seriously only in Iran. “The sheer beauty of Iran supported the artist in me. Architecturally, it grabs the eye.”
Living in Delhi, where he was used to seeing smoky skies, Aziz was bowled over by blue skies of Tehran (also seen at the exhibition). “They were a welcome relief. Cleanliness and absolute stunning weather are other features of this country.”
His next step is to do a coffee table book. “Not many Indians have stayed in Iran for so long,” says Aziz, on a parting note.
Rowzaneh: Iran Through my Lens is on at the India International Centre Annexe until July 30th
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Entertainment> Art / by Madhu Tankha / July 26th, 2019
His short film Please Hold is in the reckoning for an Oscar.
(L-R) Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi; a moment from Please Hold
Please Hold, a 19-minute sci-fi short about a young man’s life being derailed as he finds himself at the mercy of automated “justice”, is in the running for an Academy Award in the category of Best Live Action Short Film. Please Hold has been shot by ace cinematographer Farhad Ahmed Dehlvi, who has films like four-time Oscar winner Life of Pi, among others, to his credit. The Telegraph caught up with Dehlvi, who was born and raised in Delhi, for a chat on Please Hold, his craft and more.
Congratulations for Please Hold’s Oscar nomination. You are not new to awards and accolades, but does the fact that this is an Academy Award nomination make it more special?
It is special because of the history and prestige associated with the Oscars, and also the fact that ours is a Latino story, an outsider’s story about the privatised prison system in America and the degree of control technology can hold over our lives. I’m glad to see the Academy recognising this kind of work.
You can’t think about the outcome, awards or accolades while making a film… each film is a leap of faith. You hope that you do justice to the story and that it will have an impact on the audience. I’m happy that the film moved members of the Academy enough to vote in our favour. The nomination is a real honour and we have our fingers crossed for March 27. I hope people watch our film and hopefully engage in the ongoing conversations about the subject!
What makes Please Hold different from the other prestigious projects that you have shot?
One of the things I’m most proud of in Please Hold is the tone we struck, both visually, and in how the story plays out. It is a dark comedy that gets increasingly absurd and Kafkaesque. I drew inspiration from the portraits of Lucien Freud and the films Minority Report and Trainspotting. By the end of the film, I hope that you’re left with a pit in your stomach because of how closely this ‘science fiction’ parallels our reality.
One of the challenges of a short is that there isn’t much screen time to set up the world, to build context for the story. As a cinematographer, I search for ways to do this as simply and effectively as possible. With Please Hold, we found an elegant solution — to have a mural on the wall behind the character in the opening scene. The mural, which depicts a fire-breathing, rampaging robot with Lilliputian humans trying to control it, tells us so much about the world and setting of the film.
Our resources were very limited and we benefited from a lot of goodwill from within both the industry and the community. In particular, Panavision, with whom I’ve worked for many years, supported the project with a camera package and our choice of ‘Panavision Ultra Speed’ lenses to tell this story.
Your work, both as cinematographer and film-maker, has been eclectic. What would you pick as the biggest turning points in your career?
After finishing grad school at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, I spent a few years travelling across the US working on documentary projects. My time on the road, especially in the rural south, was a real schooling in the stratifications and power structures of American society, and triggered a process of reflection that has given me a new perspective on my own culture and my childhood in India. Looking back, I’d have to say the biggest turning points have been the collaborators I met, some of whom have become like family now. They’ve taken me on journeys I could never have dreamed of, tasking me to lend images to their stories.
A large part of your work focuses on making the universal personal. What is the key to achieving that?
I strongly believe that beyond entertaining or diverting us, inclusive cinema has the power to bridge cultural divides, to help us recognise our own pathos as we see it in others. I acknowledge the dignity of those that stand in front of my lens, I accept their nuance and individuality, and treat each one as the hero of their own story.
I don’t use the camera as a shield or a dividing line on set. I recognise the intimacy between subject and cinematographer and step out from behind the lens and acknowledge that the actors are more than icons or subjects and they are living, breathing people. Of course you do this while respecting the actors’ space and their own process.
My hope is that when the credits roll at the end of a film, the audience has a moment, however brief or subliminal, where they see their own circumstances in a different light and through the shared experience of the film, perhaps feel more closely connected to the person in the next seat.
I draw a lot of influence from the world outside of film. In recent years I have been studying folk crafts, both across India and the ‘Mingei’ movement in Japan. In particular, I’ve been looking at the use of pattern, and how a motif evolves over time. The timeless quality of traditional patterns is something I want to infuse into my work. The writing of Soetsu Yanagi has had a big impact on me. Also the artist Agnes Martin and photographer Sebastiao Salgado.
Your work is distinguished by its simplicity. In this age of visual effects and tech tools, how do you manage to retain that?
My first priority is always to serve the story. Everything I do, my creative choices, my methodology, the technical decisions are all in service of translating the essence of the written word into images that can connect the audience with our characters. I spend a lot of time with the material in pre-production to ensure that I’m prepared to actively create the visuals while ensuring that the mechanistic aspects of our work don’t disrupt the flow of the performances. This often involves months of work together with the director and production designer where we break down the film and build the visual language piece by piece, talking about light, colour, movement, and also how we can best use the set design and blocking to support our storytelling.
I aim to create a safe and flexible space for the actors and director to work in. I try to keep the equipment and crew outside the set as much as possible, and once we are into a scene, be ready to capture the performances that unfold.
Of course, there are times when a scene calls for a more technical approach, whether it is a precisely constructed camera movement or a particular lighting technique. These moments can feel more mechanical on set, but you have to trust the medium, trust the craft, and if you’re in service of the story, then the final scene, when it plays on screen, will look effortless and truly emotional. The audience will be transported into the movie. These moments are far more effective when you’ve built them into the grammar of the visual storytelling, contrasted them against the quiet moments in the film. It is like a piece of music — you need the pianissimo to feel the effect of the big crescendos. So I wouldn’t say that I eschew any particular tech tools or follow a dogmatic approach of simplicity. I’m always in service of each moment in the story.
Growing up in Delhi, was there an epiphanic moment that made you want to pursue this as both career and passion?
There are many! With both parents working in the industry, I was introduced to films at an early age One moment comes to mind — my first memory looking through the viewfinder of a camera. A visiting photographer, a friend of my parents, allowed me to look through his camera. It was a Hasselblad, a medium-format still camera, and had a viewfinder that showed you a reversed image that was very crisp, almost like a 3D projection. I fell in love with the way this camera’s viewfinder made the everyday image of our garden look magical, more real than reality, like a glimmering 3D projection. I was quite young at the time, and was enchanted with this ‘black box’ that could literally turn the world inside out. Of course now I understand the physics behind it.
I love the mechanical, the optical, the photochemical side of film-making, and I think this goes all the way back to my earliest experiences with a still camera. Getting some black-and-white film out of my father’s ‘stash’ in the fridge, watching him load it into the camera, going out and pressing the shutter with a child’s curiosity and then watching the images develop in a darkroom tray. This process has always been magical for me — a kind of alchemy, pulling images from a place that lies even beyond my imagination. I try and bring that curiosity to my work every day.
Is directing a natural extension of your work in cinematography?
I have always been narratively driven in my work, and having been in the director’s chair has made me a more sensitive and thoughtful cinematographer. I can see things with a broader perspective, am better able to shoot “for the edit” and am more closely in tune with the overall rhythm of the film. I think each informs the other, but I don’t see directing as an extension of cinematography.
I’d like to explore directing, particularly in episodic fiction while continuing to work as a cinematographer. There are several cinematographers who are balancing directing and shooting. Andrij Parekh did this with HBO’s Succession a few years ago, and Dana Gonzales on Fargo.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> My Kolkata> Life Style – Oscar / by Priyanka Roy / March 01st, 2022
Safina Nabi has always felt like a storyteller and, as she put it, a “story listener.” As a child growing up in Kashmir, she would listen to radio programs with her grandfather, showing a natural curiosity about them. “I would have dozens of questions and he would explain [it to] me,” she said. “Growing up, I think journalism came naturally to me.”
Nabi started working in radio programming while studying for her master’s degree in journalism and mass communication at the University of Kashmir.
At one point, she hosted an hour-long live morning show. “I wasn’t interested in writing at all,” she said. “I loved to be in front of the camera, taking pictures or doing interviews.”
In 2014, Nabi was forced to move to Delhi due to flooding in Kashmir. While in Delhi, she began to take on writing jobs as a way to make some extra money. After several years of exploring different mediums and “trying everything,” she decided that writing was what she wanted to do.
Much of Nabi’s work explores issues of gender and how it intersects with health, conflict, social justice and human rights.
She has written for The Guardian, MIT Technology Review, Vice, Al Jazeera and more.
Her stories are built around strong female characters; she feels that people are the most important part of any piece.
Over the past couple of years, Nabi also started writing about her culture and community. She sees it as a way to preserve her heritage. “We [Kashmiris] are an ethnic group and we come from a minority background. We need to preserve our history, our language, and our cultural roots. I think one of the major and important ways to do that is to document them.”
Nabi has received two grants from the Pulitzer Center for her work, the first of which she found on IJNet. Initially, she wasn’t even sure she would apply because she was anxious about being rejected. “The tab remained [open] on my laptop for days and days,” said Nabi. Finally, she told herself she had to act. She applied and received a positive response within a week. “I was so excited about it,” she said. The project, Kashmir’s Tribal Women Fight the Stigma of Birth Control, focused on the lack of access to family planning resources for nomadic Kashmiri women. “I have received really great feedback. I really think [working independently] is something that has helped me grow, because I can tell the story the way that I want to,” Nabi said.
The ability to control the direction of her stories is incredibly important to Nabi. She spoke with frustration about the limitations of the journalism industry, and how difficult it was to get started as a young journalist with new ideas. “As a journalist who is juggling lots of other issues like internet gags and communication blockades, we don’t have the kind of time to actually research each and everything,” she said. Grants give her more freedom to control her stories, and resources like IJNet, she explained, help her find new opportunities.
Nabi’s most recent project is an in-depth piece funded by the Pulitzer Center. Titled, “How Kashmir’s half-widows are denied their basic property rights,” it highlights the struggles of Kashmiri women whose husbands have disappeared, but cannot be proven dead, leaving them in limbo.
Telling stories like this is what keeps Nabi going when facing situations like months-long internet and phone blackouts, government censorship and intimidation. “Who will tell the stories of these people who are suffering unnecessarily and [who] do not have avenues to reach out to people, to government, to authorities, and there is nobody to listen to them? I feel this is my obligation and this is my duty, to actually give voices to those people who cannot raise their voice, and I think that that’s something that keeps me pushing still,” she said.
It’s a very difficult phase of journalism in Asia right now, especially for women, Nabi explained. “In Kashmir, we don’t even have a women’s journalism association or a union. I think if we all come together collectively and take [up] that space, I’m sure the struggle is not going to end there, but at least we’ll have that kind of space where we will be able to share our vulnerabilities and our problems and discuss them, and be that support system for each other when in trouble.”
Nabi also noted the importance of media organizations and publications supporting and inspiring young women to become journalists. “I think it’s an obligation and duty of other [sites] like IJNet to give space and give more grants to journalists who come from these small backgrounds and give them chances, amplify their voices and their stories. That’s what will help more journalists to come out, especially women, and feel like, “Okay, there are some people who are making it big despite obstacles or struggles that they are facing.”
Photos courtesy of Safina Nabi.
source: http://www.ijnet.org / IJNET (Int’l Journalist Network) / Home> Newsletter > Journalist of the month / by Daniela Riddle / March 01st, 2022
