The Talk
Film Appreciation – an attempt to understand multiple perspectives on the most popular art form that ever existed.
The talk, by one of industry’s finest thinkers and experts, gave us an understanding of the nuances of films their appreciation.
Krishnan Hariharan, Prof, Film Maker, Teacher
Prof Hariharan is the Professor and Dean, Mahindra Ecole Centrale, India
A student of Film Direction from the Film & TV Institute of India, Pune (batch of 1976) after completing a graduation in Commerce and Business Management.
After making ‘Ghashiram Kotwal’ (1978), a film in Marathi which was screened at the Berlin, Edinburgh and Valladolid film festivals he later settled down in Chennai to make 6 feature films, which include “Ezhavathu Manithan’ (The 7th Man), which got the National Award for the best Tamil film in 1982 and the Afro-Asian Solidarity Award at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1983. In 1992 the Hindi film entitled ‘Current’ starring Om Puri and Deepti Naval got the best Critics Award that year. Between these films he directed 3 films for the Children’s Film Society of India; ‘Wanted Thangaraj’ in 1979, ‘Crocodile Boy’ in 1986, and ‘Dubhashi’ (The Translator) in 1999.
He has also concentrated on a lot of documentary and educational films as an independent filmmaker. This includes ‘Take a Break with Hugh & Colleen Gantzer’- a 26 part Travel series; a 26 part educational series called ‘Understanding Cinema’, and a long dramatic series on the Bhakti poets of south India called ‘Maale Manivanna’.
Teaching on film production & cinema studies has been an equally important passion. Regular visiting faculty at the University of Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2004 in the South Asia Regional Studies department teaching two courses titled ‘Indian Cinema & Society’ and the ‘Cinema of Satyajit Ray’. Guest faculty at the Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, the Film & TV Institute, the Asian College of Journalism and several other colleges
Amidst all this has served on several film juries in India and abroad. He has served on the Indian National Award juries on two occasions; Chairman of the jury at MIFF, India in 2005; Thrice he took charge as NETPAC jury chairman- at IFFK, Trivandrum 2007, at PIFF, Talinn in 2009 & at JIFF, Jeonju, South Korea 2011.
He founded the LV Prasad Film & TV Academy, an ambitious and pioneering project of the Prasad Group. As the Director of the Academy since 2004, he was responsible for training students through a 2 year program to become competent Filmmakers. The larger objective was to create filmmakers with a holistic vision of Cinema & as an extension of the study of Liberal Arts.
Since May 2014, he has joined the Mahindra Ecole Centrale as Professor, Creative Sciences and also the Dean, Students and Operations.
He is happily married to Rama, a Homeopathic doctor and father of Anjali, also a Homeopathic doctor and Vivek a structural engineer.
