EVENTS IN A CLOUD CHAMBER
Ashim Ahluwalia

(2016, India, s8, 22 min) 

Events in a Cloud Chamber is a portrait of master painter Akbar Padamsee, who made the first Indian experimental film. Born 1928 in Bombay, after his studies he traveled to Paris in the early 1950s, where his painting was given an award by André Breton. In 1969, Padamsee made the 16mm film Events in a Cloud Chamber, showing a dreamlike scene in a six-minute shot. The film was received very poorly in its initial screenings, and soon after the single print was lost in transit. In 2016, Ahluwalia worked with Padamsee to excavate the history of the film and recreate it. Ahluwalia stages this ghost story and reanimation of a crucial moment in Indian experimental film history, shooting Padamsee on 16mm and investigating the fragility of cultural and personal memory.