Picture Perfect!The indian cinema quiz

Finale

Virasat pune heritage festival

At ftii

19 april 2014

Note on the quiz

“Picture Perfect 2014” was a part of Virasat Pune’s Heritage Festival, celebrating different dimensions of the city’s heritage. Pune has a strong connection to India’s film history, with institutions such as FTII, where this quiz was held. The quiz was set and conducted by Choose To Thinq, run by B V Harish Kumar and J Ramanand, which helps organisations and individuals profit from focused curiosity.

These are the finals of this quiz, won by Prachi Bari and Sapna Sarfare.

Join the Choose To Thinq mailing list (http://eepurl.com/S0Soj) for a smarter world powered by curiosity, where we send out exclusive quizzing content, info gems, and tell you about our events, couple of times a month. Also take a look at Infinite Zounds, (http://infinitezounds.blogspot.in/) our popular daily quiz-blog on current affairs.

format

1. ‘vijayanand’ – the silent round2. ‘prabhat’ – we can talk3. ‘mangala’ – more colourful questions4. ‘city pride’ – the multiplexed round on pune

Round 1. ‘VIJAYANAND’

“Identify these 8 films to have won the swarna kamal for best feature film!”

“5 points per correct answer”

“silently written round”

1 2

3 4

5 6

7

8

Round 1. ‘VIJAYANAND’answers

1. Do aankhen barah haath2. Kabuliwala3. Samskara4. Mrigaya5. Adi shankaracharya6. Kanchivaram7. Deool8. Ship of theseus

Round 2. ‘prabhat’

11 questions10 points per correct answer

Infinite reboundsNo villainous negatives

This 1948 film has choreography by Jaya Shankar, Mrs. Rainbird, Natanam Nataraj & Nirmala Devi. T G Raghavacharya started directing the film and in fact made most of the film. But ultimately, he didn't receive any credits for direction.

Which film & who was credited as director ?

answer

Chandralekha, SS Vasan, known best for its choreography in the “drum dance” sequence.

The controversial Indologist Wendy Doniger once wrote an essay called “The Mythological in Disguise”, which (over-)analysed a Hindi film.

A quote from the plot's summary: “His widowed mother, weeping over the mangled corpse, begs him to return the debt of revenge for this untimely death.”

Which film?

answer

Karz

This 2008 Malayalam film is about Vannuki Joseph who buys an object from a Frenchman in the 1920s. Though he wants to use it to entertain people, it becomes controversial among superstitious people and eventually he throws it in the sea.

Partly based on real events, what is this object, also the name of this film?

answer

“Bioscope”

“Jaana Pehchana” is the most recent film by Rajshri Productions (in 2011). It was directed by an actor-director who has featured in a few Rajshri productions.

“Jaana Pehchana” is a sequel to an old Rajshri film, starring him. Name the director and the prequel.

answer

Sachin, “Ankhiyon ke Jharokhon Se”

In 1984 and 1997, employees of Navodaya studios, set up by Appachan, had to install special silver coated plastic screens at theatres screening a film. This film also required Navodaya to manufacture one million pieces of an item.

Which film?

answer

My Dear Kuttichathan/Chota Chetan; India’s 1st 3-D film. The item was 3-D glasses.

What is specifically common only to these films:

Sparsh* Chashme Buddoor,Salaam Bombay, Main Hoon Na,Om Shanti Om,Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara*

* these two are set apart from the rest for a particular reason

answer

Women directors nominated for Best Director at the Filmfare Awards (Sai P, Mira Nair, Zoya A).

* Sai Paranjpaye and Zoya Akhtar have won it.

K.A.Abbas wrote the screenplay for a film, adapted from his own book : “And one did not come back”.

Film?

answer

Dr. Kotnis Ki Amar Kahani

In Sujoy Ghosh’s “Kahaani”, Vidya Balan demands “running hot water” and is greeted by a boy who runs away to get hot water.

This is a reference to a famous scene from which Satyajit Ray film?

answer

“Joi Baba Felunath”

Whose names appeared during the credits of a film for the first time in Barsaat in 1949 and in Gori (1992) for the last time?

answer

The music directors Shankar-Jaikishen

Explain?

+1=

+1=

+1=

answer

Sivaji Ganesan (“Navratri”), ANR, and Sanjeev Kumar (“Nayi Din Nayi Raat”) have played 9 roles in a film.Kamalhassan did 10 in “Dasavatharam”.M N Nambiar did 11 in “Digambara Samiyar”Priyanka Chopra did 12 in “What’s Your Rashee?”

“Evano Oruvan” is a 2007 film starring Madhavan, who also co-produced the film and wrote its dialogues.

It is based on a 2005 film – Madhavan asked the director of that film to make this as well.

Which film?

answer

“Dombivli Fast” by Nishikanth Kamat

Round 3. ‘mangala’

11 questions10 points per correct answer

Infinite reboundsNo villainous negatives

Reversing order of passing

When Mrinal Sen was making a film, he went to his neighbour K A Abbas and asked if he knew anyone who could do some narration for him. Abbas was making a film and one of his actors volunteered saying he also knew Bengali.

Abbas agreed to loan him only if Mrinal Sen would give him Utpal Dutt in return. That was the first paid assignment for which film person? Which film was this?

answer

Amitabh Bachchan in “Bhuvan Shome”

“Bhavni Bhavai”, Ketan Mehta's debut feature film, had a big starcast who all acted for free because they were all his friends from his FTII days - Naseer, Om Puri, Smita Patil, Benjamin Gilani, Mohan Gokhale etc.

The film is dedicated to playwright Bertolt Brecht, the Bhavai exponent Asait Thakore and to a famous pair whose style of depicting life in a comic fashion was also an inspiration for Ketan Mehta.

Who?

answer

Goscinny and Uderzo, creators of Asterix

The actor Mohan Gokhale passed away in 1999 in Madras while shooting for a multilingual (though mostly in Tamil) film. He was replaced by another Marathi actor who had shot to prominence for his work in the play “Gandhi Viruddha Gandhi”.

He won a National Award for Best Supporting Actor for this film.

Which film and who was this replacement?

answer

“Hey! Ram”, Atul Kulkarni

Which two people wrote the story for the following films?

answer

Mani Ratnam & Ram Gopal Varma

Sholay has inspired several remakes and parodies. Examples are the infamous “Ramgopal Varma Ki Aag”, “Duplicate Sholay”, and “Ramgarh ke Sholay”.

So if the character of Gabbar (or Babban) was played by Amitabh Bachchan in “…Aag”, and Vinod Tripathi in “Duplicate Sholay”, whoplayed the role in “Ramgarh ke Sholay”?

answer

Amjad Khan himself

In 1957, Vyjayanthimala won a Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress for “Devdas”. Why did she refuse to accept the award?

answer

She said her role was not a supporting one, but as good as the lead’s!

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” is a short story by James Thurber about a day-dreaming man.

One of its scenes was used in a 1975 Hindi film to prove that the lead actor was indeed guilty of a crime.

Which film and what scene?

answer

“Choti Si Baat”; the scene were Amol Palekar dreams of being in court having killed Asrani.

Images like these are common on Bangalore rickshaws. This is a reference to a 1980 Kannada film starring Shankar Nag.

Which film?

answer

“Auto Raja”

The doctoral thesis of which Dadasaheb Phalke awardee was titled “Proposals for Preparing India’s Basic Education to Use Audio-Visual Techniques in Adult Education” which he completed from Columbia University, USA?

answer

Dr. Bhupen Hazarika

His real name is Jehangir Chowdhury, also known as Raja. He is a wildlife photographer. For a brief while during a journey he takes on another role, which makes him the father of “Santhanam”.

So how do we know him during this period?

answer

Mr Iyer in “Mr and Mrs Iyer”

What is common to these books?

answer

Made into movies by Rituparno Ghosh

“Shubho Mahurat”, “Raincoat”, “The Last Lear”

Round 4. ‘city pride’

5 multiplexed questions about pune and indian cinema

Written Round

10 points per correct answerNo villainous negatives

Go for it!

After his graduate studies from Fergusson College, he studied experimental psychology & taught at Harrow, London, thus earning his famous title. One of his films was one of the earliest to win a National film award for Best Feature Film .

Who and what film?

answer

Acharya Atre, “Shyamchi Aai”

In 1976, four directors (K. Hariharan, Mani Kaul, Saeed Mirza, Kamal Swaroop) jointly made this film as part of a cooperative that included Om Puri. Shown again at the Berlin Film Festival in 2014, this movie is based on a famous piece of literature set in Pune.

What is it called?

answer

Ghashiram Kotwal

Image: The Hindu

This 2009 Marathi film was made of three parts:

“Lagnaachya Vayaachi Mulgi”“Aushadh Ghenaara Maanus”“Bazuula Basleli Baai”

The film won a couple of National Awards. In 2012, the first story was remade into a Hindi film, set in Pune.

Name both films.

answer

“Gandh”, “Aiyya”

Among the many contributors to help this 2004 film were:

• Sachin Tendulkar who auctioned some cricket gear • Amitabh Bachchan who donated one lakh• A school in Jogeshwari organized its children to make

and sell lamps A group of students wiped and cleaned cars to collect some money

• A division of 10 std Nashik students in Nasik collected Rs. 10 each and their teacher added some more to donate Rs. 1001

• A Marathi theatre group collected around Rs. 65,000.

For what specific reason did they collect this money?

answer

For Shwaas’s Oscar bid expenses after it was selected as India’s entry to the Oscars

Among the many contributors to help this 2004 film were:

• Sachin Tendulkar who auctioned some cricket gear • Amitabh Bachchan who donated one lakh• A school in Jogeshwari organized its children to make

and sell lamps A group of students wiped and cleaned cars to collect some money

• A division of 10 std Nashik students in Nasik collected Rs. 10 each and their teacher added some more to donate Rs. 1001

• A Marathi theatre group collected around Rs. 65,000.

For what specific reason did they collect this money?

answer

For Shwaas’s Oscar bid expenses after it was selected as India’s entry to the Oscars

This subject of this 2014 documentary is FTII, Pune, starting from the days of the Prabhat Film Company. It gets its apt title from a traditional religious procession in the morning that was a feature of many Indian towns.

What is this title?

answer

“Prabhat Pheri”, literally meaning “a journey of Prabhat”

Got feedback? Tell Ramanand at ramanand@gmail.com

Join the Choose To Thinq mailing list for a smarter world powered by curiosity, where we send out exclusive quizzing content, info gems, and tell you about our events, couple of times a month. Also take a look at Infinite Zounds, our popular daily quiz-blog on current affairs.