It’s time to make films, says veteran filmmaker Muzaffar Ali, who has abstained from cinema since 2015’s Jaanisaar, as the film-making ecosystem is “unfavourable” at the moment.
Long before Ali made his first film Gaman (1978), he had already started indulging in the artistic expression of images, which he says really drives him. It’s also something that keeps him busy when he’s away from the director’s chair.
“I think the filmmaking ecosystem is not right at the moment. But it’s not like I’ve given up on the idea, and my recently published autobiography talks about this journey of film, art and people and places. Time to make films, it will come, it will happen,” Ali told PTI in an interview here.
“And even if it doesn’t happen, I’m happy with the creativity of something that’s in my hands,” he added.
The 78-year-old painter, fashion designer, poet and filmmaker inaugurated an exhibition of the same name at Bikaner House on Tuesday, showcasing the lesser-known non-cinema creative aspect of his life.
‘Muzaffar Ali’ sheds light on the various mediums that employ the multihyphenate outside the world of films. Curated by scholarly author Uma Nair, the Masha Art exhibition features a comprehensive collection of Ali’s works over the past four decades, including his paintings, collages, sketches and designed objects.
Discussing his alignment with other forms of fine art, which are heavily inspired by the Sufi poet Rumi and horses, Ali said that painting is an important part of his artistic expression.
“Art is everything to me. I may not be known as a painter, but painting drives me. Painting is a very important part of my artistic journey and expression, and these paintings you see here are my dreams of making a movie about Rumi, of experiencing Rumi’s poetry, of exploring this magical animal called the horse, of the mysteries of the horse that is on the verge of divinity ,” he said.
The exhibition is spread over 11 rooms, tracing Muzaffar Ali’s preoccupation with paint and brush since the 1980s.
The Lucknow– the born cultural revivalist made his debut with a painting exhibited in public as early as 1970, when the art historian Geeti Sen curated a group exhibition in Bombaythen Mumbai.
The art show features a number of collages and paintings that include landscapes and horses, in addition to a series on Rumi. Some of the leads from Ali’s award-winning films are also present, as well as the architect and his wife Meera Ali.
Part of the exhibition opens with portraits of film stars Rekha, who starred in Umrao Jaan, and Smita Patil, star of his directorial debut Gaman.
Ali said the artworks are a “journey through time” that showcase different experiences and emotions. “It is a journey through time, through different experiences, landscapes and feelings from art. So you try to find these things in my paintings, in the landscapes that really decorate my mind.
“There are many different kinds of things going on in my art, some of which have been private. Art is a very private thing anyway. But when you make an exhibition, you share it with people,” said the filmmaker.
