Saeed Akhtar Mirza and The Story of Naseem
·
·
Parallel cinema or new Indian Cinema is a film movement in India that originated in West Bengal in the form of an alternative to mainstream commercial Indian cinema.
This movement at that time produced many critically acclaimed writers and filmmakers such as Satyajit Ray, Mrinali Sen, Ritwik Ghatak, and others.
One such writer and director is Saeed Akhtar Mirza, the maker of notable parallel films such as Mohan Joshi Hazir Ho! (1984), Albert Pinto Ko Gussa Kyon Aata Hai (1980), and Naseem (1995) which won two national film awards in 1996.
Born in Mumbai, Maharashtra to Akhtar Mirza, a noted screenwriter himself, Saeed began his career as a documentary filmmaker in 1976, qualifying for films with the acclaimed Arvind Desai Ki Ajeeb Dastaan.
His last film Naseem which was released in 1995 captured the demolition of the country’s secular structure post the demolition of Ayodhya’s Babri Masjid. The film is set between June and December 1992, days preceding the demolition of Babri Masjid.
The film tries to show two different perspectives, one through the memories of the grandfather of a 15-year-old girl ‘Naseem’, memories of communal harmony in the pre-independence era, and the other through the horrors of the present communal riots.
In an interview back in 2020 Saeed described the movie as an ‘Epitaph of a nation’ Which had a deep impact on him and to regain his sanity he decided to travel around India and document it on camera.
Later in 2008, he released his autobiography in the form of a novel named ‘Ammi: Letter To a Democratic Mother’ about the memories of his mother who died in 1990.
Naseem which was made not only to voice Mirza’s protest against communal politics but to unite the citizens of the country was a milestone in the history of Indian cinema.
