ABOUT ME...

..

I am a film and theatre critic, columnist and author having worked in two of India’s best regarded daily newspapers, The Statesman in Kolkata and The Hindu in Chennai, for 35 years.

My authorised biography of India's auteur director, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, has just been published by Penguin/Viking. The research for the book was funded by New York's Ford Foundation. The helmer’s latest film, A Climate for Crime, has travelled round the world, including Toronto, Nantes, Warsaw, Munich, Deauville and Dubai.

I am now Editor South Asia of The Seoul Times in South Korea. I am also a regular writer for the Hindustan Times, one of India’s largest selling English dailies, a columnist for the Gulf Times in Doha, Qatar, and a contributor for The Japan Times, Japan’s leading English newspaper. I also write for the Gulf News in Dubai, apart from The Week and Samakalika Malayalam Vaarika in India

In 2008, I completed my 25-year tenure with the English language newspaper, The Hindu, in Chennai, where I wrote editorials, comments, reviews and features on a wide range of subjects, such as environment, wildlife, health, children, history, heritage, archaeology, advertisement, fashion, cinema, theatre and other arts.

I have written features and editorials on  Kolkata rickshaw-pullers, Kolkata trams, Kolkata Chinese, circus industry, Taj Mahal,  visual pollution, AIDS, smoking, alcoholism,  ruins of Vijayanagar, tiger and elephant poaching, cigarette smoking, and on cities like Venice, Florence, Rome, Amsterdam, Paris, Cannes and others

 
I have been travelling widely both within the country and outside on a variety of journalistic assignments. I have done spot reporting on and interviews with several organisations, including UNESCO in Paris, Sorbonne University also in Paris, Globe Theatre in London, Belgian Centre of Comic Strip Art in Brussels and Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum.

I have met and written about  personalities as varied as Mulk Raj Anand, R.K. Narayan, Barbara Cartland, Alyque and Pearl Padamsee, Tom Ford, Pierre Cardin, Rohit Bal, Ritu Beri,  Sidney Poitier, Gemini Ganesh, Shabana Azmi, Smita Patil, Nandita Das, Naseeruddin Shah, Om Puri, Aishwarya Rai, Amitabh Bachchan,  Pedro Almodovar, Lars Von Trier, Jane Campion, Ang Lee, Ken Loach, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Aravindan, Buddhadeb Dasgupta, Shyam Benegal, Anurag Kashyap, Mani Ratnam, Kamal Hassan,  R.K. Laxman, Mario Miranda, Sudhir Dar, E.P. Unny and others.

I have been covering major film festivals, including Cannes (20 years), Venice (10 years) and Berlin. I have also been writing from festivals such as Melbourne, Stuttgart, Deauville, Tokyo, Fukuoka, Dubai, Marrakech and several in India (Mumbai, Goa, Kerala, Pune, Bengaluru and New Delhi).

In 2007, Cannes honoured me with a Gold Medallion for distinguished writing. I was one the 20 selected from all over the world, and the only one from India among the 5000 journalists there at Cannes.

I have served on several international film juries -- New Delhi, Pune, Melbourne, Venice, Deauville and others. I have been on the National Book Jury. I have also served on Indian Panorama juries.

 
I grew up in Kolkata, went to school and college there and worked for The Statesman for nine years under British editors before joining The Hindu in Chennai in 1984. It is in Kolkata that I developed a passion for meaningful cinema: I had this fascinating opportunity of watching Satyajit Ray closely at work, and the fact that his son, Sandip, and I were classmates at St. Xavier’ s College helped me to nurture my association with the great Master.

 
I can speak, read and write Bengali, Hindi and Tamil (my mother tongue). I can understand Malayalam. However, I work in English.

 
I have reviewed films for Screen International.

I also reviewed movies for The Hollywood Reporter from India and major international film festivals, such as Venice, Deauville and Marrakech.

I write on cinema also for The Seoul Times, Sight & Sound, Dawn in Pakistan, The World, and  Khaleej Times in the Gulf and The Week, Sakaal Times, Hindustan Times and Press Trust of India in India.

 
I write a column on social and political affairs for The Japan Times in Tokyo and The Seoul Times in Seoul.

In 2001, I was invited by The Japan Foundation (under the Japanese Foreign Ministry) for a fellowship to study modern Japanese cinema. I stayed in Japan for six months and did detailed research, meeting tens of Japanese producers, directors and actors. I wrote several articles on Japan for The Hindu.

I got a similar fellowship from The Japan Foundation in 2008, this time for 10 months, but had to decline the invitation for the time being because I was busy with the Adoor book.

I have taught cinema at Karnataka’s Manipal University and English/journalism/cinema at Chennai’s Loyola College.

My writings can be seen on my website:   http://www.gautamanbhaskaran.com

Gautaman Bhaskaran

Editor South Asia, The Seoul Times, South Korea

Columnist, The Gulf Times, Doha, Qatar

Contributor, The Japan Times, Japan

Writer, Hindustan Times, India