Amrita Sher-Gill: A Family Album

Director: Navina Sundaram

February 25, 2010 | 6.30 pm
Little Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Mumbai

Amrita Sher-Gil is an emblematic figure representing modernism in India. The film ‘Amrita Sher-Gil, a Family Album’, is a personal account of the life and work of one of India’s most renowned painters made by Amrita’s niece, Navina Sundaram. This 37-minute film was originally produced for the exhibition “Amrita Sher-Gil — a Family of Artists in the 20th Century” at Haus tier Kunst, Munich and Tate Modern, London in 2006 -2007. Using old photographs, diary entries, newspaper cuttings, letters and anecdotes her mother, Amiim’s sister Indira, told her, Navina Sundaram presents a fascinating portrait of the painter and woman, Amrita Sher-Gil.

The film screening will be followed by a power point presentation of Amnia Sher-Gil’s paintings, where Sundaram will elaborate and comment on the works while quoting extensively from Amrita’s letters and placing them in a historical context.

Navina Sundaram born in 1945, grew up and studied in Delhi/India. Ever since 1970 she has worked as a political television editor-cum-reporter and as a foreign correspondent for North German Radio & Television in Hamburg. In her capacity as a filmmaker, roving correspondent, news-reporter, anchorwoman, she worked for programmes on the national network like “Weltspiegel”, “Gesichter Asiens”, “Panorama”, “Extra Drei”. She has also made scores of documentary films. She has reported from Europe, Africa, South-East Asia and South Asia. From 1992 — 1993 she was the foreign correspondent and head of the South Asia Television Studio in New Delhi. Navina Sundaram today lives and works as a television journalist and independent filmmaker in Germany.