A Cinematic Imagination

Debashree Mukherjee co-curated “A Cinematic Imagination: Josef Wirsching & The Bombay Talkies,” the newest exhibition on display at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai until April 2024. 

“This photo exhibition is a tribute to the German cinematographer Josef Wirsching, a pioneer of Indian cinema, who worked for the legendary Bombay Talkies studio. It explores the story of a world across worlds, of geo-cultural convergences that brought together Berlin and Calcutta, Munich and Bombay. Behind-the-scenes production photographs in the exhibition highlight how Wirsching’s artistic imagination infused Indian cinema with the psychological depth and stylistic ethos of German Expressionism, responsible for the cinematic stylings of ground-breaking films of the era such as Jawani ki Hawa (1935), Achhut Kanya (1936), Mahal (1949) and Pakeezah (1972).”

Learn more here.