Natak Jari Hai (The play goes on)

Directed by Lalit Vachani, 2006, 84 mins, Hindi, English, with English subtitles

"The film moves back and forth through time, space and people, offering priceless vignettes into the character and persona of the late Safdar, through archival footage where he belts out a line of song, joking about his actor's total lack of voice, tune or rhythm. Molosyahree, his widow, opens out her album of black-and-white photographs, and in so doing, essays her evolving relationship with Safdar that physically may have ended with his violent death in 1989 but has reached far beyond questions of mortality through the sustenance and growth of Janam. . . . But the film is not about Hashmi. It is about the movement he triggered during his lifetime; a movement he died for; a movement that lives on much after his death."

www.indiatogether.org

"On the streets, in slums, at workers' unions, the show has gone on for more than three decades now, with a disparate bunch of committed individuals. . . . It was the spirit, ideals and hopes that drive the group that film-maker Lalit Vachani wanted to capture through his film Natak Jari Hai. . . . The film is a clear-eyed, gently intimate look at the history of the group as also the diverse backgrounds and ideologies of the people that comprise it. It is partly this diversity that forms the soul of Janam."

Frontline, Aug. 25, 2006

"To enter the world of Janam and its people, Lalit Vachani uses a technique similar to the one that he did in his two previous films. . . . The entry is unobtrusive. The organisation, Janam, and its work, theatre, is brought out skillfully through a sensitive shadowing of the team and its members, with some snippets of their performances in diverse settings and interviews filling the gap. . . . The group attracts those interested in theatre: students passing time before joining college, workers who want to do something more, those wanting to become actors on the silver screen and others, all from different class backgrounds and age profiles."

Economic and Political Weekly, Sept. 16, 2006

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