Dec 6, 1999

Chandrakant Kulkarni, 35
Director

THE CREATOR
Chandrakant Who? Recheck: isn't this the guy who directed Mahatma vs Gandhi? The same guy who co-wrote and directed an eight hour epic called Yuganta which had the audience sitting through all the 50 shows, who has taken experimental theatre and made it mainstream? "He can convince people that images are reality," says film-maker Amol Palekar.

Kulkarni thrives in the twilight zone where 2-D becomes 3-D, where stage techniques are applied to cinema and vice versa. Sometimes he will fool around, as he did with Bindhast, a Marathi film with an all-female cast, the first time in India, and a runaway hit. Many feel he has saved Marathi theatre and cinema. "If the audience and performers aren't on the same level," he says, "the exercise is futile." Then again, how would he know?

-Sheela Raval

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