Art and Culture

Veteran actor Soumitro Chatterjee and industrialist H M Bangur of Shree Cement will be among the special invitees attending the event.

 

The documentary, 'An Argumentative Indian', traces the life and work of Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, a much-acclaimed economist and philosopher and explores the intellectual giant’s formative years of life and its influence on his views of the world - past and present.

 

Professor Amartya Sen will be present at the special screening that will be followed by an interactive session with the Laureate and the film director.

 

 

The documentary is structured as a free flowing conversation between Professor Sen and his student and Cornell economics professor, Kaushik Basu. 

 

Through the conversation, the narrative takes us from his childhood days in Shantiniketan, West Bengal, to his college in Calcutta and his academic career in the US and UK, where he was the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge University.

 

The audience will know about Professor Sen’s intellectual roots; his views on Social Choice Theory; Development Economics; on Philosophy and the current rise of nationalism in the world as embodied by Donald Trump and the Hindutva wave in India.

 

Views from other eminent scholars, Paul Samuelson, Kenneth Arrow, Sugata Bose, Timothy Scanlon and former Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh enrich the understanding of the world of Amartya Sen in the film.

 

 

“I conceived of this documentary on Amartya Sen during 2000/2001. He belongs to a rare category of intellectuals who are fading away in this increasingly specialized world of knowledge," said Suman Ghosh, Director of the documentary.

 

"As Kenneth Arrow has said about Amartya Sen, ‘His intellectual contributions in so many fields would constitute a specialty in each field separately.’ In that vein I conceived of Amartya Sen as a person whose intellectual vistas range from Sanskrit to modern political movements and his greatness consists of the amalgam of such disparate topics and fields. This Universal perspective of knowledge is rather rare in today’s world,” said Ghosh.

 

“Moreover, Professor Amartya Sen’s life story, with the early influence of Rabindranath Tagore, to his fight with cancer while he was at college to his fundamental contributions for the socially and economically deprived of the world, is fascinating material. I thought it would be a great challenge to integrate his world views with his work, to look at it as one unifying narrative,” Ghosh said.

 

“Amartya Sen documentary is a must-see for the new generation. Professor Sen is a towering intellectual giant whose life and work is set to influence a whole new generation of youngsters all over the world. The documentary by Suman Ghosh is a very laudable initiative to provide and insight into the mind of a living genius,” said Sundeep Bhutoria, Trustee, Prabha Khaitan Foundation.

 

Suman Ghosh is a National Award winning Indian filmmaker. He has made six feature films and one documentary film. 

 

He had his film training at Cornell University in New York. 

 

His first feature film "Footsteps", starring Soumitra Chatterjee and Nandita Das won two National Awards in 2008. It was shown at numerous film festivals including Vancouver, Karlovy Vary and IAAC New York.

 

His second feature film "Dwando", also starring Soumitra Chatterjee, was a part of the Indian Panorama at IFFI Goa in 2009. 

 

 

His next feature film "Nobel Thief", starring the Indian megastar Mithun Chakraborty was world premiered at the Busan IFF and was an official selection at the BFI, London Film festival. The film received the "Best Indian Film" award at the Bengaluru International Film Festival in 2012.

 

His next feature film "Shyamal Uncle Turns off the Lights" was world-premiered at the Busan Film Festival in South Korea and had its North American Premiere at the MoMA, NY. It won the "Outstanding International Feature Award" at the ReelWorld Film festival in Toronto. 

 

His next feature film "Kadambari", starring Konkona SenSharma and Parambrata Chatterjee, is based on the life of Rabindranath Tagore and his controversial relationship with his sister-in-law Kadambari Devi. It received the Best Feature Film Award and the Best Actress for Konkona Sensharma at the Washington DC South Asian Film Festival 2015.

 

His latest released film “Peace Haven” world-premiered at Busan IFF and was an official selection at MAMI and NYIFF.