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A journalist since 1991, Suparna Sharma has written extensively on cinema, crime, corruption, insurgency and “all sorts of powers that disempower”. She won the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Illustrated Reporting and Commentary, along with Anand RK and Natalie Obiko Pearson, for her Bloomberg piece ‘trAPPed’, about a neurologist held under digital arrest.
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She’s written for, among others, Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, Rolling Stone, The Week, The Wire, Frontline, Indian Express, The Asian Age, and The Deccan Chronicle.
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The first film that moved me:
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I think it was “The Champ” (1979) by Franco Zeffirelli. They took us from school, and I was about nine years old then. When it comes to Indian films, it would be “Anand”. I’ve watched it more than a thousand times.
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Over-rated masterpiece:
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Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Ranveer Singh “trilogy” — “Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela”, “Bajirao Mastani”, and “Padmaavat”. They were operatic, lavish, gorgeous, made on a massive scale, and were an ode to symmetrical beauty. That left me totally cold, despite the fact that he is one of the finest directors in India. No one understands cinematic language the way he does, but in these films I felt he was operating like a very fastidious art director, who was particular even about the pleats of ghagras. I especially had an issue with the climax of “Padmaavat” for its beautification of violence.
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Film you return to:
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“Anand” and “Pakeezah”. I keep returning to Meena Kumari’s performance and “Pakeezah” itself, rewinding it scene by scene.
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Film I would recommend:
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M. S. Sathyu’s “Garm Hawa” (1974). Still a very relevant film — that seems to have been forgotten in popular memory — with some great writing, direction, and performances. That scene of Balraj Sahni asking for money and walking down the stairs continues to make me collapse emotionally.
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