Here are this week's top reads from The Reel.

Gulzar’s 91st birthday was just the excuse Devarsi Ghosh needed to revisit his filmography.

In Gulzar’s cinema, estranged lovers, joie de vivre and great songs

Gulzar, who turned 91 on August 18, has a respectable track record as filmmaker across three decades.

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She was there too – this is the big idea driving a memory project that seeks to understand the experiences of the Film and Television Institute of India’s female students.

In FTII memory project A Room Of Our Own, a reminder that women were there too

Initiated by Reena Mohan, Bina Paul and Surabhi Sharma, the digital project archives the collective experiences of the film institute’s female students.

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Asha Bhosle, glam on the stage and in life too

Book excerpt: Asha Bhosle, a star on the stage and off it

‘Her performance avatar is blingy and the embodiment of granny-gone-glam.’

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Read enough about Sholay? Here’s why Ramesh Sippy’s Shakti is a classic too

Start the week with a film: Revisiting ‘Shakti’, the other Ramesh Sippy classic

The Hindi film is available on ZEE5, Prime Video and YouTube.

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Aparna Sen’s cinema is steeped in Bengali culture but universal too

Book excerpt: How Aparna Sen’s cinema is localised in Bengali culture but also universal

Her films are ‘realistic portrayals of social and political issues often played out in a domestic scenario’, Devapriya Sanyal writes.

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