Film Screening: 'Of Times There Were Before' & Q&A with Filmmaker Eshan Sharma

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Of Times There Were Before is a portrait of Romila Thapar, one of the world’s most influential historians and public intellectuals. At ninety-four, having lived through much of the making of modern India, Thapar stands at an unusual distance from the past she has spent a lifetime studying. Filmed at her home in New Delhi, the documentary begins with a simple question: who is the person behind the historian’s name? Moving beyond the authority of Thapar’s scholarship and the public image built around it, the film explores her life, memories, ideas and intellectual journey. What emerges is an intimate portrait of a life still in conversation with its own time.

Eshan Sharma is the founder of Karwaan: The Heritage Exploration Initiative and an independent filmmaker. Of Times There Were Before is the first film in a planned series of documentaries on Indian historians who have shaped our understanding of the past. Through the series, he hopes to move beyond historians’ scholarship and public profiles to explore the lives, memories, ideas and intellectual journeys of the people behind some of the most influential historical writing of our time.