Theare Adda presents Theatre Adda present Khepar Mon Brindabon (The Crazysphere): Scrrening of the documentary on the legend Gour Khepa By Ladly Mukhopadhaya with an introduction and post screening discussion with Ladly Mukhopadhaya.
A 80 minutes documentary on a legendary Baul Gour Khepa, a performer extraordinaire who travelled the world to popularize his unique music form. Bob Marley, Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan met with him and he performed with Jerzy Grotowski. He was one of the last Bauls who practiced the philosophy and lifestyle of a Baul searching ways to negotiate with the changing commodity oriented global situation, constantly preaching about natural ways against ‘synthetic’. The director has followed this eloquent witty performer for 12 years to capture his enigmatic charm, his philosophy and music. The film has been awarded in Canada International Film Festival, FOG Festival, San Francisco and Mumbai International Film Festival.
Date: September 23, 2026 from 6:30 pm
at Alliance Française du Bengale, Park Street
LADLY MUKHOPADHAYA – A Brief Profile
Ladly Mukhopadhaya is a writer and film maker with nearly four decades of work behind him.
Film direction and cinematography are his forte. His work takes him all over India and abroad, giving him a good mix of national as well as international exposure. He started his career with NDTV (a national level channel), shifted to Doordarshan (The official channel of Govt, of India) as a programme director and later worked in the same capacity with ETV national level (with 3 programmes). He also worked with ZEE TV (national level channel), AKASH BANGLA and NE TV as a director producer and designed probing news based programmes with highest TRPs.
He has directed television programmes, telefilms, training films, documentaries (over 200), corporate films, commercials/ ad films, music videos and feature films – for many of which he has also been the cinematographer. He has received appreciation for his work in the form of numerous awards (including national award by Govt of India) and critical acclaim.
His films on forced eviction of people from the farmland raised a serious debate and won him many national and international awards. His passion for folk culture, lifestyle and sustainable livelihood has also been a driving force for most of his films. His feature length documentary on the legendary Baul musician Gour Khepa has won national and international awards.
Ladly has done voluminous work (over 100 video films) on documenting culture, lifestyle and livelihood and sustainable development of tribal communities in the North-East (Sikkim, Assam, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh) for different Government organizations (CIIL – Ministry of HRD, C-DAC) and international organizations (UNESCO) and on sustainable livelihood development of artisans and artists in West Bengal, Jharkhand and Rajasthan (Banglanatok dot com – UNESCO project)
On the other hand, Ladly is well-known as a columnist and a film critic for his insight and special style of penning his thoughts down. He started writing prolifically in his early 20s by publishing a literary magazine named ‘Barnaporichoy’. He also created a cultural space named ‘KagojerBaagh’ (the paper tiger) at College Street, the famous book hub of Kolkata, that attracted the eminent writers, poets and artists. He was the editor of a famous anthology on Kafka in Bengali in 1986.The index of the volume is star studded and the book was soon popular especially amongst the teachers and students of literature and liberal studies. The book is still used as reference reading in Jadavpur University, Kolkata University and several other universities of West Bengal.
Ladly is regularly published in noted Bengali dailies and magazines. Collections of his
columns are available in quite a few books on cinema and on folk culture. The books on cinema are, “Cinema non-cinema”. “News and discourse”, ‘Watch Cinema Read Cinema’, and a handbook on making films for young readers. ‘Mela khelar Dhulokhelay’ (Playing in the dust of village fairs), and ‘Udasi Babar Akhra, Vol 1 & Vol 2’ are collection of essays narrating his life experience in the company of marginal and alternative performers in the country and abroad. As a senior fellowship awardee of Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India he carried out an extensive research and visual documentation project on the Bauls of Bengal. His other books are ‘Hostir Konya’ (The daughter of elephants, in memory of the famous folk singer PratimaBarua), ‘Nesha Charit’ and ‘Pagoler Songe Jabi’. His recent works include a collection of essays named ‘Tahader Santiniketan’ and ‘Gour’
Currently he is working in the tribal villages in Sriniketan, Birbhum, West Bengal, with the tribal Santhal children and young adults on their empowerment through education, cultural activities and sports.
Theatre Adda foundational text
Alliance Francaise du Bengale & Culture Monks are delighted to announce the start of ‘Theatre Adda – The Park Street Sessions’, from October 9th, 2015.
Theatre Adda, will feature sessions of creative performances including theatre, performance art, storytelling & other interdisciplinary form of expression. We will also features discussions, lectures and activities related to theatre & performances. The content will multilingual and from various styles and genres.
The objective of the sessions is to provide space for emerging talents and marginalized, experimental theatrical practices. This space is both a space for exhibition as well as a lab for development & experimentation. We would like to forge participative dialogues which is cross cultural and interdisciplinary in nature , address the problems of culture formation & creative expressions an find models of possibilities and demonstrate the models. We would like to be as inclusive as possible and would be looking to dwell into non represented or non representative forms, to confront the normative and disrupt it, to allow voices to emerge, which were the silences of the past. At the same time we would like to work with the conventional, to see how it informs the present and the future, in view of the changing dynamics of global politics, art, economics and society. inclusive.
The sessions are open to all and will be non ticketed.
Culture Monks 