Italian Cinemas/Italian Histories at the University of Mumbai

I braved the monsoon fury to attend the first lecture and screening of the Italian Cinemas/Italian Histories at the University of Mumbai this morning. In fact, Kalina in Santa Cruz (East) felt more like Chittagong, Bangladesh than a suburb in India's financial capital, just off the airport! I digress. This post is about the course and not the monsoons.

Dr Alan O'Leary is in Chittagong, ahem Mumbai, for the next 8 weeks to conduct this wonderful course, which includes interactive presentations as well as a screening of a film every Friday. To be honest, I kind of expected the whole course to revolve around the most acclaimed Italian films of all time. Much to my surprise though, Dr O'Leary isn't just another rigid academician. Over the next few weeks, we will probably a more holistic look at Italian cinema and explore aspects that present the history and the psyche of the people and the country.

  



Italians don't have to bear the weight of Fascism, the way the Germans unfortunately carry the tag of being from the country that produced the Nazis. However, Mussolini's reign and World War 2 is a period that most Italians look with difficulty.

We watched Roberto Rossellini's classic, 'Roma Citta' Aperta. (Rome, Open City)' I won't play spoiler for those who want to watch the film but I have to say that I love the idealism of the film. Active resistance to evil is entrenched in Indian epics and Hindu philosophy and the film shows how the Italian resistance to Nazism made strange bed-fellows in the Communists and the Catholic Church. Of course, myth is a part of history and the contents of the film can be open to debate. Filmed in 1945, 'Roma Citta' Aperta' was made by those who survived the Second World War and made at a time when the emotions were still strong and fresh.



 Dr Alan O'Leary is Senior Lecturer in Italian Studies at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Leeds. He is an expert on Italian cinema and cultural studies. You can read more about Dr O'Leary here. http://holidaypictures.tumblr.com/.





For those of you in Mumbai, who want to attend the course, it's absolutely free. It will be held on Fridays at 10:00 am at the Phirozeshah Mehta Bhavan at the University of Mumbai's Kalina Campus. The campus is exactly half-way between the Kurla and Santa Cruz stations. And the course notes will be available on this blog. http://italiancinema-mumbai.tumblr.com/

Nuove Tribù Zulu's Bombay performance

It was as beautiful a full moon winter night as Bombay has ever witnessed and with long weekends and holidays in the horizon, there was a definite excitement in the air.

Blue Frog in Lower Parel was set on fire by Rome-based Nuove Tribù Zulu (a gypsy rock band) with numbers that were a fusion of languages, instruments and musical styles. As a student of the Italian lannguage, I was one of the privileged invitees for the magical evening. For me, Italian music had always been about opera and classical music. Of late, I have also been endeared to the music of Sergio Endrigo. But rock and Italian were two things I couldn't put together until last night.

We were treated to rock, folk, gypsy, punk, ska, classical, polka and tarranta merged with Rajasthani folk music courtesy the Nomadic Orchestra of the World (NOW)

NOW  is a project born in the remote nomadic villages of Rajasthan in January 2007, conceptualized by Meenakshi Vinay Rai, Andrea Camerini and Laura Di Nitto: an overwhelming fusion between the musicians of the Bhopa, Kalbelya and Banjara tribes and Nuove Tribù Zulu.

Music is one of my passions and it's great to see different cultures coming together and creating such incredible melanges.