Dear Chalam
Details
Artist: Babu Eshwar Prasad
Title: Dear Chalam
Year: 2024
Duration: 15 minutes
Medium: Single-channel, 16mm and Digital
Credit: Babu Eshwar Prasad, Dear Chalam, 2024. Courtesy and © the artist. Selected for AFI'25 by Project 88, Mumbai, India.
Dear Chalam (2024)
Babu Eshwar Prasad
Selected by Project 88, Mumbai
Dear Chalam can be read as a eulogy for a dear friend, a journey through the landscape of cinema, and of making and sharing films. A poetic assemblage, the film dips into Chalam Bennurkar’s powerful documentary practice, his involvement with the Odessa Collective and commitment to cinema as a people’s movement—all of which come alive as potent strands in a letter that forms the central thread of the film. The film moves beyond a personal remembering of a singular life to think more widely about cinema, and its potentialities in a process of constant recalibration and re-imagination.
Sree Goswami, Gallery Director, Project 88, Mumbai, says:
We selected Dear Chalam because it is a poetic and deeply moving film that explores personal and shared experiences. The way it connects dreams, memories, and the passion for cinema makes it a perfect fit for this year’s theme of Dream States.
The film captures Dream States by blending reality with imagination. It uses layered visuals and a reflective tone to show how dreams and memories overlap. The sense of longing and shared connections in the film feels like being inside a dream.
Being part of AFI’25 is a great opportunity for the artist to share their work with global audiences and connect with other filmmakers. For our Gallery, it highlights our role in supporting unique voices and promoting artistic exchange. This programme is a wonderful way to celebrate various artistic practices through film on an international platform.
Artist Q&A
What does a democratic, international film programme such as Artists' Film International, mean to you as an artist?
I am happy that such forums are being brought into fruition, which use the potential of the digital space as well as a decentred network of institutions to source and disseminate films. I believe a democratic, international film program like Artists' Film International offers a unique platform for diverse voices and perspectives to be shared globally. There are so many curatorial, artistic and research possibilities that such forums hold in the way they allow for a larger understanding of how artists are working with the medium of film across various geographies.
What compels you to work with moving image, and when did you first become interested in the medium?
My fascination with film while started in Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University Baroda when I was doing my post-graduation and I became part of the college film club. Copiously watching films, it sparked a deep appreciation for the medium – this complex form that brought together image, sound and movement to create a multi-sensory storytelling experience. I continue to hold on to those initial fascinations - the relationship between the still and the moving image and looking at those early experiments with the latter. My journey as a filmmaker began in 1997 with a video workshop at the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan in Bangalore, where I made my first video, 'Notes from Diaries. Years later, in 2014, I made my debut feature film, 'Gaalibeeja (Wind Seed),' which was above all a conversation with films that had nourished me – with the genre of the Road Movie, the cinema of Abbas Kiarostami, Jim Jarmusch, Wim Wenders, among many others. Making films is part of an ongoing dialogue with other image makers as well as with the history of technological apparatus that shapes our ways of reading the world. I carried some of this impulse into my more recent feature-length film Hariva Nadige Maiyella Kaalu (A running river is all legs).
Can you speak about the potential that dreaming and altered states of reality offer individuals and societies? How do you feel this is reflected in filmmaking and in your artwork specifically?
I seem to circle around these tropes of sleeping and dreaming In my work quite often and I don’t want to completely analyse it so as to allow them to come to me. But there is no doubt I incorporate elements of dreams, such as metaphors, abstract landscapes, and visual elements that evoke emotions and experiences. By merging the real and the dreamlike, I aim to create a sense of ambiguity and uncertainty, blurring the lines between reality and fantasy, inner and outer worlds, between the rational and the irrational, to find ways of rupturing the received ways of seeing the world.
Please share a list of books, music, films, artworks, thinkers, spaces and places that inspire your practice, and in particular have fed into your thinking around this film.
My creative influences are diverse and wide-ranging. In literature, I draw inspiration from the works of Italo Calvino, among others, whose innovative storytelling and philosophical insights resonate deeply with me. I'd also like to mention Jorge Luis Borges, as well as Kannada writers P. Lankesh and Purnachandra Tejaswi,
Musically, I'm drawn to experimental and avant-garde sounds, including ambient, drone, electronic, and minimal music. These genres' emphasis on texture, atmosphere, and sonic exploration mirrors my own cinematic approach.
For this particular film, I found inspiration in the work of documentary filmmaker Chalam Bennurkar who was a close friend, specifically his powerful documentary practice and involvement with the Odessa Collective. His commitment to cinema as a people's movement is a potent thread that runs through the film, which takes as its central narrative a letter from Chalam himself.
What new projects or lines of research are currently preoccupying you?
I'm currently immersed in developing a new feature film, which is in the script development and pre-production stages. This project explores the intricate relationships between memory, image, decay, and fiction. By delving into these themes, I aim to create a cinematic narrative that navigates the blurred lines between reality and fantasy.
Details
Artist: Babu Eshwar Prasad
Title: Dear Chalam
Year: 2024
Duration: 15 minutes
Medium: Single-channel, 16mm and Digital
Credit: Babu Eshwar Prasad, Dear Chalam, 2024. Courtesy and © the artist. Selected for AFI'25 by Project 88, Mumbai, India.