A GAZE OF HER OWN

By winning a prestigious prize at Cannes, cinematographer Modhura Palit brought India back in focus

With no films at Cannes this year, the current state of Indian cinema is lamentable, but its future, the film festival signalled, might indeed be bright. All of 28, Kolkata-based cinematographer Modhura Palit was handpicked by Angénieux, manufacturer of high-quality optics cinema lenses, for its Special Encouragement Award. When the final shot of Ami O Manohar (2018) was screened as a sample of her work in Cannes, Palit was lauded for her intimate gaze and play with light.

Now back from France, Palit is already in the thick of things. Used to being behind the camera, she says she is disconcerted to be in front of it: “I find it weird. I am more of an observer. Maybe even a voyeur.” When studying cinematography, Palit did not think she was necessarily breaking gender stereotypes.

The “perception of cinematographers as big brawny men” struck her much later. Today, on a set that appears full of men, she is one of only three or four women in the crew. Clad in a T-shirt, denim shorts and pink shoes, her modest frame seems at odds with her obvious authority. Often asked if she can lift the camera, her response comes quick: “Is that all a cinematographer is supposed to do?”

While she has very few limits of

her own, Palit is quick to adapt to the limitations of her surroundings. Shooting a film whose budget did not allow for a car rig, Palit once filmed a scene while hanging from a moving jeep in hilly terrain. Though all this seems fairly unprecedented, does she have any women heroes to look up to? “I love Reed Morano. There is an image of her holding onto a camera while four months pregnant, and to me it’s one of the most powerful inspiring images for any woman,” she says.

An alumna of Kolkata’s Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Palit’s clearest memory of a scene that impacted her is the “iconic train scene” from Pather Panchali (1955). Her parents are photographers “who are passionate about the craft”, so the alternative language of films was something she was “initiated into at a young age”. Palit says she is open to watching all kinds of films, whether it is a Singham (2011) or a Masaan (2015), for example. “But I’d maybe be more comfortable shooting a Masaan.”

As part of her prize, Palit gets an Angénieux lens on loan for her next project, but with a resumé that’s already brimming with documentaries, TVCs, short films, feature films, corporate films, music videos and a film shot entirely in VR, the young cinematographer has already invented a novel way of seeing.