Initially, when I started Humans of Cinema, I let Definitely, star power has a great influence on the people dictate the page. I received and posted the public. The sense of familiarity and comfort comes THE AGE entries to engage movie lovers and to maintain di- with the presence of a certain actor acts as a strong versity. Sometimes I tried contacting people over Ins- attraction point for the audience. Especially in India, tagram and asked for their review or critic over a cer- the culture of star power might be a tad too glorified- tain movie they watched or any movie that changed but then star power is universal in nature and is just their life. as appealing everywhere. It does have a profound “Back then, I honestly didn’t care much about the effect on how cinema is received and perceived. OFlikes and engagement over the post. I wanted diver- The Perspective sity. And simply did that.” Your reviews showcase a rich perspective. Can Soon I started to receive entries from Russia, Hong- you give examples of how varied perspective kong, and other nations across the world. Surprising- shapes/ could shape cinema? ly though, that did not do the magic. The magic came with a niche- the mainstream Hindi Cinema. When you tweak a character, ever so slightly, you will The Experience notice they can truly add strength to the portrayal. CINEMANEMA “Consider the movie ‘Pink’, had Amitabh Bachchan’s You have interviewed some of the amazing actors character been done by a female lawyer then the im- in the Indian film industry like Pankaj Tripathi, pact would have been completely different.” Neena Gupta, and other such personalities. What did you learn over the course of the interviews? Perspective comes with depth and experience. Simi- larly, in the series ‘Master of Nun’ (season 2 episode I realized over the course of his interviews with these 6) the actor who portrayed a black homosexual wom- people that the passion these actors carry towards an wrote the script of the entire episode herself to cinema is on such diverse, different levels. do justice to the character she was playing, It was a shard of herself. Such strong, honest changes when “Pankaj Tripathi himself has watched only 50 films they occur now is the start for healthy inclusion later. all his life, all of them strictly Indian. His passion for acting outweighed his passion for the art of cinema.” In our winding conversation. Harshit led us through the forms cinema can take, its ability to influence and So I can say that every individual is a story. Passion motivate people. Cinema can be powerful and ma- and process usually differ according to a person’s ny-faced and perhaps is our best bet at dealing with personality and choices. social and political issues amongst a wider audience. It can mean something more when people under- The Trends stand- something intricate, still somehow powerful. There is a constant tendency for Indian filmmak- ers to press the same kind of story to the public. What do you think of this trend? People don’t experiment in India in terms of pre- senting a story. Innovation does happen once in a while but then people start repeating the same thing. Western cinema is more widely recognized due to the extent of experimentation done there. People ar- Mr. Harshit Bansal is the en’t ready to accept something new, most of the time, founder of ‘Humans of and want to stick to the usual ones. There is so much Cinema’. This Instagram unused scope for experimentation. page is entirely dedicated What is your view on star power and its influence to the field of cinema. on the Indian audience? Does it spell good for Cinema?