Nilanjan Bhattacharya

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Nilanjan Bhattacharya (1968 - present)

Nilanjan Bhattacharya
(1968 - present)

Nilanjan Bhattacharya is an independent filmmaker, artist, writer and creative consultant, who now lives between Leipzig and Kolkata. He doesn't have any institutional training in filmmaking or any other stream of arts. After receiving his bachelor's degree in Arts from Calcutta University, he joined the Bengal film industry where he worked for five years and assisted filmmaker Tapan Sinha, making short fictions and television series. Soon after, he became more inclined towards documentaries and implementations of the medium of video in art spaces. He made more than 15 documentaries, produced and exhibited art works and installations.Nilanjan has ...

Deep Focus

Bengalis in the World of Fish

This is a 29-minute-long celebration of the lustrous affair between Bengalis and fish. For a Bengali, fish is not merely an edible living creature or a portion of meal but ...

Filmography

A saga in Parallel (1995)
Kolkata Bhalo Thaka (1996)
Hashi hatyar Gatha Gaan (1998)
Mukti Sangramey Bangladesh- Mujibnagar Parbo (1999)
Boier Bangla (2000)
Bengalis in the World of Fish (2001)
In the Land of Hidden Treasures (2002)
Biographic Documentaries on four eminent personalities from Bengal, India (2003)
The Dark faces of Drowning (2004)
Under This Sun (2005)
Beyond the Barbed Wire (2006)
It's Open 2007: Bandhu Amar (2008)
Johar Welcome to Our World (2010)
Rain in the Mirror (2012)
Ninety Degrees (2013)
Sonar Beni (The Golden Braid) (2014)
Changing lives: a brief journey in rural Bihar (2016)
Indigenous food culture, people's knowledge and Hunger in Odisha (2017)

Awards

To acknowledge the best of Indian cinema in 2005, Under the Sun was awarded at the 53rd National Awards for the Best Scientific Film/ Best Environment/Conservation/ Preservation Film. As producer and director, Nilanjan received two Silver Lotuses (Rajat Kamals) awards for the "thought provoking film on environmental diversity with excellent Cinematography, Music, Editing and Sound Design".
To acknowledge the best of Indian cinema in 2010, Johar Welcome to our World was awarded the Best Narration/Voice Over at the 58th National Award. Nilanjan received the award for "a seamless powerful narrative about the symbiotic intricate relationship the tribals of Jharkhand have with their forests and their struggle for existence against mindless aggressive development and flawed conservation policies, told with empathy and sincerity".

Did You Know?

Nilanjan designed and moderated a workshop on video art by celebrated German artist Marcel Odenbach. He was the project consultant in Sourav Sarangi's Char -The No Man's Island that was showcased in Berlinale 2013. A creative consultant in Ruchir Joshi's documentary on Kolkata titled My Rio My Tokyo, he was the initiator and director of the pilot project of Interpretative Interactive Archive on Calcutta.

Research by: Geety Sahgal