Aruna Vasudev, 1936 – 2024

FIPRESCI, and its Indian chapter deeply mourn the sad demise of the former President and one of the founders of the India Chapter of FIPRESCI Ms. Aruna Vasudev (born 1st Nov. 1936) who passed away on 5th Sept 2024 in New Delhi. 

Ms. Aruna Vasudev was an eminent film scholar, critic, editor and author. She did her doctorate from the University of Paris on cinema and censorship. She was the founder-editor of the 1st Asian film journal of India “Cinemaya” (1988). She founded NETPAC in 1991 and the India chapter of FIPRESCI with Chidananda Dasgupta in 1992. She was the founder-director of “Cinefan: Festival of Asian Cinema” (1999). She was honoured with many national and international awards like Officer of Arts & Letters by the French Government, Korean Cinema Award, Italian Star of Solidarity and several lifetime achievement awards. She has written, edited and co-edited many books, articles and essays on cinema. Some of her selected publications as author/ editor/ co-editor are: “Liberty and License in the Indian Cinema” (1978), “Indian Cinema Superbazaar” (1983), “Les cinemas indiens” (1984), “Frames of Mind: Reflections on Indian Cinema” (1996), Being and Becoming: The Cinemas of Asia (2002), “Modernity & Nationality in Vietnamese Cinema” (2007), “Kenji Mizoguchi and the Art of Japanese Cinema” (2008) and others. She has translated “A la Recherche de Mahabharata” by Jean-Claude Carrière from French into English as “In Search of the Mahabharata” (2018). She also has contributed hundreds of articles and essays on cinema to many national and international books and journals. She was the series editor of six books on great Indian actors: P C Barua, Sivaji Ganesan, Shammi Kapoor, Mehboob Khan, Sohrab Modi and Guru Dutt. She wrote a column regularly for some years in Hindustan Times, Asian Age, etc. and  articles in journals and books in India and in Europe. She was the recipient of the 1st Satyajit Ray Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions to Writing on Cinema conferred by FIPRESCI-India on 2nd May 2021 during the celebration of Ray-Centenary. She will be remembered forever through her works.

Premendra Mazumder

For your kind reference:
https://www.fipresci-india.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2A.-Interview-Premendra-Mazumder-In-Conversation-with-Aruna-Vasudev.pdf